Too Little Too Late

Chapter 15 | Edited

"You know we don't have to automatically go back to the common room right now. We could do something more fun..." Sirius said, trailing off and waggling his eyebrows suggestively. 

'That cheeky bastard.' Layla thought, feeling her cheeks reddening. 

Sirius, instead of being at all sorry for his remark, burst out laughing. "I... was... joking," he managed between laughs, "the... look... on... your... face!" 

Layla couldn't help but to laugh as well. She imagined that her face had been a picture, she would have laughed if someone else's face had reacted the way she imagined hers had. 

"So," Layla began when their laughs had both died down, "what 'fun' thing do you have in mind?" 

"I was thinking that maybe we could go to the quidditch pitch and hang out?" 

A smile crossed Layla's face. "Alright." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two hours later they found themselves lying on a conjured blanket in the middle of the pitch. Sirius had insisted that Layla wear his leather jacket (which the boy wore underneath his robes at all times, for some reason) when it began to get colder. Then, as it began to get colder still he conjured a blue flame in a jar, which he then enlarged to keep them warm. 

Their topics of conversation had strayed from the depressing note that they'd left off on in the room of requirement. The more frivolous topics that they were now focused on had them both laughing loudly, uncaring of who could hear them. 

"Really? You hadn't drunk alcohol until last summer?" Sirius asked incredulously. 

Layla just laughed in reply, "nope, not a drop. I did go overboard once I started though." Memories of that first experience came flooding back to her, and she had to double her efforts to contain her laughter. 

"Tell me about it." 

Layla looked up and met his eyes, not as surprised as she would have been merely a week ago to find genuine curiosity there. "Alright," she began, "but only if you tell me about your first time drinking alcohol afterwards." 

A flash of something akin to sadness crossed Sirius' face, but he quickly disguised it. "I'm not sure now is the time... it's not a particularly pleasant story." 

"I don't mind." Layla replied honestly, and it was settled. They would have both shared something personal with the other person. "I'll start. Well it wasn't until I'd gotten to Remus' house that I'd even thought about it really. We had never had alcohol in my house before then, my mother had been an alcoholic when she was younger you see, and after she had sobered up she had stayed sober for twenty years. My dad gave up alcohol for her sake and I had never been interested, especially knowing what it had done to her and what it could do again if it were reintroduced to our household. Then after... what happened... when I was at Remus' it was his father's birthday, and they brought out some old firewhiskey. I think they had said something about that particular bottle being as old as Remus' dad but, if I'm honest, I can't really remember much of the night. All I know is that when they found out that I'd never drunk before, they supplied me with enough to make up for the several months of not drinking while I had been legally of age to drink. Then the next morning they gave me a hangover solution, and some delicious pancakes. For some reason, that was one of the first times that I realised that I could be happy even after what happened. I just continued to get closer to Remus' family after that. They really are wonderful people and I will forever be grateful to them for helping me when I needed it." Layla rambled out her story, thinking back to her summer at the Lupin's and how much they had helped her, giving her fun and affection when she thought that she would never have been able to experience it again. "What about you?" She asked, turning her eyes to Sirius, whose smile quickly dropped. 

"I wish mine was that much fun. When I was about nine my parents had been having a lavish get together, with all of the prominent pureblooded families that we knew, which was all of them. I had spent the whole time being paraded by my mother. A clown forced to perform tricks for her, basically. I had been opening doors, talking in the most posh accent I could muster, fetching drinks and bringing them out on a silver platter to those who wanted them. I had learned how to make cocktails from a young age, being expected to make them when the house elves were busy and then serve them to show off how 'charming' I was. At this point I hadn't quite figured out how much of a bitch my mother was. Or maybe I had but I'd excused it, still desperate to impress the demented woman and win her approval. I had even been forced to play a dreadfully boring piano piece that night, to show off my talent. Then, as I was going to bed, before the party had finished, my mother was taking me and she ran across another of the purebooded women who had been snooping about, intent to cause some kind of scandal that could disgrace our name. She had found a bottle of elf-made wine in my room. It seems that my foul cousin had disappeared with some of her friends into my room to get drunk. They were only a few years older than me. My mother did not need to hear any excuses, any explanations that I had been in sight the whole night, acting as her monkey for the guests. She thought that her reputation was more important than that. My mother really was a foul woman, but she did not believe that men should hit children. Instead she was the one to raise the women board that she used to spank us. It seems that she was so infuriated that I had dared to ruin her reputation that she lost herself. I'm not sure how many she did in the end, or how many of them were struck after I had passed out. She didn't even take me back to my room, she left me passed out in the hallway. However, she had left the bottles that my cousins had been using in my room. Seems she forgot. I quickly found out that alcohol has a sort of numbing effect, something that I desperately needed as from then on I stopped trying to be the perfect son and did everything I could to be the opposite of whatever she wanted me to be. She didn't take that too well." Sirius had been in a trace like state, staring fixedly at the ground as he told his story. Layla guessed that he didn't want to show weakness, something that she could understand came from his past after listening to what he had just explained to her. 

"Oh Sirius, I'm sorry." She whispered, pulling him into a hug to try and comfort him. 

"No, it's fine. Let's move onto something more fun. Forget about that." He thought for a moment, trying to find the best topic to distract them. 

"Have you ever had a crush on anyone and, if so, who?"