Coming Together ༄ Sirius Black

Chapter Twenty Nine

Asteria opened up her book and propped it up on the table so she could lean back in her seat and continue to read. Sniffling came from the seat opposite her, where Sirius sat with his head in his hands as he slept. She smiled as she watched him and gently ran her fingers through his hair, brushing it out of his eyes. A small laugh escaped her lips as Sirius' head fell to the side and out of his hands, jolting him awake.

"Merlin... Are we still in the library?" He rubbed his eyes tiredly.
"I was up for going somewhere else but you fell asleep." Asteria pointed out.
"Somewhere else you say? Where would that be?" Sirius smirked now.
"I mean, it's quite private in this corner of the library now so I might want to stay here."

"Fancy a quick kiss then?"

Asteria scoffed, "You really know how to woo a girl... And I always wondered why they were falling over at your feet."
"A snog?" He raised an eyebrow.

"You're a right idiot, Sirius Black." She grinned, leaning towards him.
"You like it." He murmured quietly before their lips connected.

"I don't think I'll ever get tired of that." Asteria whispered as she rested their foreheads together.
"And we've done that quite a lot." He chuckled quietly, "But I do like kissing you."
Asteria laughed, leaning away, "Well I quite like kissing you too."

Sirius stretched his arms across the table and held one of Asteria's hands in his as she continued to read from her book. She furrowed her eyebrows as her eyes glanced over the pages, all the while Sirius played with her fingers and twisted her rings around absentmindedly. If he was with anyone else, he'd have complained endlessly and dragged them out of the library - but now he sat patiently and waited for Asteria to finish.

"You want to leave?" Asteria asked as she peered over the top of her book to look over at Sirius.
"No... I'm perfectly happy sat right here." He nodded unconvincingly, "Perfectly happy doing nothing... Sitting in silence... Staring..."

Asteria rolled her eyes and closed her book, "Okay, if you put this back we can leave."

Upon hearing these words, Sirius leapt to his feet and snatched the book up before dashing out of view to find the shelf it belonged on.

"Oh! Fancy seeing you here!"

Asteria turned around as she heard Sirius shouting rather loudly from somewhere out of view. Just as she was about to get up and find out what was going on, James Potter rounded the corner with a rather bewildered looking Sirius on his heels.

"Asteria. How did I know it'd be you here?" James asked, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the table.
"James, lovely to see you as always. Please, sit down." Asteria laughed at the boy.

"We need to get working on the... The plan." James looked between Asteria and Sirius, "Operation Animal."

"Operation Animal?" Asteria raised an eyebrow.
"It's not a mind blowing name." Sirius leant against the back of Asteria's chair.

"I just mean, we've had the mandrake leaves for a while now. What's the next stage?" James pulled the leaves out of his pocket and set them down on the table.
"Don't we need Peter?" Sirius asked.
"Just-what's the next step?" James waved him off.

"Well... That's the thing, really." Asteria chewed on her bottom lip.

"What thing?" James asked, leaning forward.
"What thing?" Sirius repeated, going to put his hand on her shoulder but upon noticing James, decided against it at the last second.

"You have to keep the mandrake leaf in your mouth for... A while." She spoke slowly.

"A while?"
"How long's that?"

"A month." She replied shortly.

James and Sirius looked at each other.

"A month?" They repeated in unison.

"Yeah... You have to hold it in your mouth for a month. You can't chew it or swallow it or anything." Asteria explained.
"Will we die?" James asked.
"I doubt it." Asteria scoffed lightly.

"Do they taste nasty?" Sirius asked.
"If they taste anything like they smell then yes. They'll probably taste nasty." Asteria nodded.

"A whole month?" James repeated.
"Like thirty days. Yes." Asteria nodded.

"Well we could sort it out tonight? Remus is... Occupied and there's nothing else we can do until this is sorted." James folded his arms.
"Sure thing." Asteria replied.

"Or we could do it now? Sooner we start, the sooner it's over." Sirius suggested.
"Peter's not here." Asteria turned to look at him.
"We can go find him. Come on Asteria. James, you wait here. We could be a while." Sirius hid his smirk.

"What? Why?" James went to stand up but Sirius had already grabbed Asteria's wrist and dragged her away and out of the library before he had the chance to even blink.

Asteria panted as she ran along behind Sirius, him guiding her down the corridors and outside into the empty courtyard.

"What are you doing?" She pulled her hand away from him.
"Getting away from James." Sirius explained, "Wow... Never thought I'd say that."

"Why do you want to get away from James?" Asteria folded her arms.
"I want to hold hands with you and hug you and kiss you and... I can't do that with him there." Sirius kicked at the floor, feeling the embarrassment flood to his cheeks.
Asteria, on the other hand, grinned giddily.

"You were the one that suggested we shouldn't tell people about... that." She reminded him.
"I know, I know. But you agreed."

Sirius didn't want to make his current situation with Asteria public. She was very nervous about the whole thing and seen as all of his past relationships had been very open, he didn't want to put any pressure on her. He didn't want Asteria to listen to the stories of what he'd done to previous girls or hear lies that he was just using her.
Asteria didn't want Sirius to receive ridicule from other students because of who she was. She didn't want to force him to stand up for her when he shouldn't have to worry about that.

"I don't want to keep you away from your friends. They'll hate me if you blow them off all the time." Asteria mumbled.
"It won't be all the time." Sirius held his hands on her arms so she faced him now, "I will tell them. We'll tell them. Just, I quite like it being just the two of us. It's exciting isn't it?"

"I suppose..." She replied hesitantly.

"Just give it a while. Let's sort this out between us first and then... Then it'll be okay." Sirius confirmed, taking her hand and squeezing it gently.

Neither of them knew what their current relationship was, or whether it could even be called that. They were young and only knew that they wanted to spend all their time together.

"Alright."