A Marauder's Guide to Falling in Love

Chapter Twenty

She had thought that they would be leaving right away and had not been anticipating sneaking out again. But she agreed to meet him anyways. After feigning sleep to her friends, she waited in bed until the clock indicated midnight. Marlene slipped quietly out of her bed and pulled a sweater over her head, changed into leggings from her pajama bottoms and grabbed her wand off the bedside table. She slowly slipped out of the bedroom and down into the common room.

Sirius was already waiting for her. She couldn't tell if he had ever left or if he had been waiting for the past hour since she had disappeared up to her dorm room with her friends but he was still dressed in the jeans and dark long sleeve shirt that he had been wearing earlier.

When she approached him he was hunched over a familiar looking parchment of paper but he hastily folded it away as she neared close enough to peer over the edge.

"What is that thing?" Marlene asked incredulously. She had seen them use it several times before but they seemed quite diligent at hiding it from her. Tonight was no exception; Sirius smiled mischievously but did not answer her question.

"Are you ready to go?"

"Where, exactly, are we going?" she asked dubiously. She caught a glimpse of the invisibility cloak on the chair beside him and her previous apprehension eased slightly.

"If I told you it wouldn't be a surprise," he rose from the chair and grabbed the bundled material beside him. He was careful to place the folded parchment in his back pocket along with his wand before moving towards the common room exit, signifying for her to follow him. "I know you already know what this is," he unfolded the cloak and pulled it above his head and indicated for her to join him underneath it. "I know how little you look upon sneaking out at night and getting caught so I figured we'd just use this tonight and not risk the detention."

"That's Lily that frowns upon sneaking out," she said hastily but in truth she wasn't sure she was the biggest fan of the idea either. The first time she had snuck out she hadn't been quite as prepared and ended up with detention. But Sirius was much more talented at these sorts of extra-curricular activities, and he had asked her to trust him.

"Right, well, get in here because it's going to be a tight fit. You're lucky you're so short otherwise we both might not fit under this thing," Marlene moved quickly to the cloak, ignoring his comment about her lack of height, and he dropped the cloak around her as she sidled up beside him. Perhaps it was the fact that there a heated, undeniable sexual tension that hung in the air between them, but he wasn't kidding; the room between them was excruciatingly non-existent, almost as if there were less space than the last time they had been under the cloak together.

He moved around behind her and she felt his chest brush against her and his chin grazed the top of her head before they exited the common room. It was a slow and complicated walk through the castle as they were constantly running into one another within the confined space. They hadn't even reached the fifth floor when Marlene grew weary of the daunting challenge and, after Sirius had kicked her shin one too many times, she threw the cloak off in exasperation within the shadows in the corridor they had been attempting to walk down.

"I think we are bound to attract more attention with this thing than without," she sighed dejectedly as Sirius pulled the cloak off of him and grinned.

"Just stick to the shadows and keep quiet," he said in barely an audible whisper before moving ahead of her to lead the way. Although the rest of their walk was much more comfortable, Marlene felt uneasy at being exposed and she felt herself jumping at every little noise.

They had finally reached Sirius's intended destination; the Astronomy tower. It was well known that the tower was strictly prohibited to students unless they had a specified class but that didn't seem to bother Sirius much as he began ascending the staircase, only to glance over his shoulder briefly to ask if she was planning to join him. She figured that for someone like Sirius, who spent probably half of his time at Hogwarts breaking the rules, that sneaking up to the tower was probably not something he worried himself with. However, Marlene was already hesitant at breaking curfew and she shuddered at the thought of being caught in a restricted part of the castle after hours.