Mystery Girl • Sirius Black

Prefect Rejects

It was the beginning of fifth year for Ailee Abbott. She would be returning to hogwarts with a few more freckles dusted across her nose and her auburn hair a bit longer than before. Her bright baby blue eyes lit up at the sight of her best friend, and fellow ginger, Lily Evans, standing a little ways away on the platform.

She ran to her best friend and embraced her with a surprising amount of force given Ailee's small stature.

"I missed you!" Said Ailee still hugging her friend tightly.

"I literally just saw you yesterday!" Laughed Lily.

"Exactly! It's been hours!" Exclaimed Ailee.

The two girls eventually finished saying their goodbyes and started to head towards the train.

"So Lils, where would you like to sit?"

"Um well I actually have to go sit with the prefects for our meeting..."

"Oh... yeah, right..." said Ailee a bit crestfallen, "Well you go on and I'll figure something out."

"I'll come find you if we get out early! I promise!" Said Lily. She felt a bit guilty leaving her shy best friend to fend for herself, but was sure that anyone would be happy to have her join them.

Ailee walked alone with a small pout on her lips, her previous excitement extinguished at the thought of having to spend the long train ride without the company of her best friend.

"Hey! Ails! What's with the face? You look like someone jinxed your pigmy puff," Said a familiar voice. The voice of Sirius Black.

The Sirius Black.

Pureblood. Marauder. Lady's Man. He was taller than average, ruggedly handsome with striking grey eyes, and had dark hair that fell into his eyes with a sort of casual elegance. He was also the most fawned over boy in all of Hogwarts.

He and Ailee had known each-other for years as they were both Gryffindors in the same year, but they didn't speak that often, and when they did, most of their conversations involved small-talk or silly banter. Even though Ailee was usually pretty shy, she always felt relatively comfortable talking to him, even if he was a flirt. At this moment however, she was pouting and not in much of a mood to talk to anyone.

"Oh... erm... I forgot Lily had to sit with the prefects..." she mumbled.

"Yeah, Moony's there too. You're welcome to sit with the rest of us prefect rejects if you'd like." He said with a smirk.

She knew he was just kidding, but she really didn't have all that many friends and didn't know who else she would sit with. She also wouldn't mind sitting with the self-proclaimed marauders. Lily hated them because of how they treated Severus, her childhood best friend in Slytherin, whom the boys regularly pranked. Ailee however didn't really have a problem with most of their antics, given her dislike for the sketchy Slytherin. Whist Severus was nice enough around Lily, Ailee didn't at all approved of his Slytherin friends or the manner in which he often guilted Lily into spending time with him. Lily and Ailee decided a long time ago that they would have to agree to disagree on the matter of Lily's friendship with Severus.

"I actually wouldn't mind... but I wouldn't want to intrude or anything.." she said shyly.

The boy's smirk turned into a smile.  "You could never be an intrusion!" He said happily."It would be an honor for you to grace us with your presence Miss Abbott."

Ailee could feel a faint blush creep across her freckled cheeks, "Well then lead the way Mr Black!" She said with a giggle.

They walked a bit further down to the compartment currently occupied by a bespectacled boy with messy black hair. "Prongs! Wormy! Look who I found!" He exclaimed. "Wait where's wormy?" He asked noticing the disappearance of his other friend. Peter Pettigrew, or Wormtail, as he was nicknamed, was a smaller boy who lacked the social graces of his companions. He was short with blonde hair and blue eyes. It was well known gossip amongst the Gryffindors of their year that he had a not so subtle crush on Rosie McGuire, a Hufflepuff also in their year. Peter and Rosie were very close friends, but it was obvious to everyone but him that his romantic feelings for her were not reciprocated.

"Pete went to go bug that Hufflepuff girl... again." Said James with an eye roll.

"Poor guy." Sirius said shaking his head sadly as he sat next to the girl and across from the other boy. "The friend zone is a rough place to live."

"Are you talking about Peter's crush on Rosie?" Ailee asked, to which the boys nodded forlornly. "Poor guy..."

Once the three of them were situated, they got to the topic of what they were up to over the summer.

"Well I spent most of the summer back home.." Sirius stated with a bit of a grimace, "but luckily I broke out towards the end and got to spend some quality time with Prongsie here." He said with smirk.

"Yes my summer was spent at home as well. I cried myself to sleep every night awaiting the day I would be reunited with my dear Padfoot." James replied dramatically causing Ailee to giggle.

"So what about you Ails? Did you go on any big adventures?" Asked Sirius.

"Well not exactly. I spent most of the summer either going to see Lily or Lily coming over to see me." She said with a small smile.

"You really shouldn't have said that..." whispered Sirius into Ailee's ear. The proximity of his face to hers causing her to blush a little once again.

"That is so unfair. I can't believe you got to see Evans all summer!" Exclaimed James.

"She's my best-friend! What do you expect?" Laughed Ailee.

"He expects her to drop everything and fly away into the sunset on a hippogriff with him." Sirius stated matter-of-factly, as his friend's face began to turn into a brilliant shade of red

"Shove off! You know Paddy here is quite the romantic as well." James added with a smirk, as Sirius glared at him.

"I'm well aware of his romantic escapades." Ailee replied with an eye roll. As much as she knew it wasn't her business what Sirius did, or whom he did it with, it always made her feel a bit nauseous when she heard the rumors about him and his 'lady's man' ways.

"I'm sure you've heard lots of things, but none of them are true." James said as his smirk widened, Ailee's eyebrows shot up, and Sirius's glare intensified.

"Oh really?" Ailee asked, not at all convinced.

"Yes. You see, ever since first year poor Padfoot has only ever had eyes for one fair maiden."

"I think that's enough of this conversation." Sirius said through gritted teeth.

"No, no, no! I want to hear more about this mysterious girl you fancy!" Exclaimed Ailee.

"You heard her Pads! Tell her about how you always- oomf!" Ailee never got to hear what Sirius 'always' did on account of him tackling James and covering his mouth.

"No. There's no point. She'll never fancy me back... at least not in that way."

"What?" Ailee said incredulously. "I find that hard to believe."

"Well contrary to popular belief, not every girl in this school fancies the pants off of me." He said with a smile but a sad look in his grey eyes.

Ailee scoffed, oblivious to the knowing look James sent to Sirius.