February 16, 1977
5:03 pm
Hogwarts

Anneliese and Sirius were too absorbed in arguing passionately about trying to figure out how to insult and torment one another most in the afterlife to notice their friends coming out of the Transfiguration room behind them.

Callaway's hands were shoved into the pockets of the black leather jacket while a few stray strands of golden blonde hair had fallen in front of her face from the very messy ponytail she had thrown it in right before the portkey.

Her dark blue eyes were very strongly feeling something, and even Remus couldn't tell if it was genuine anger at Sirius or amusement.

Standing a few feet away from her, Black was looking just as fierce as he spoke with his hands, moving them animatedly in front of him to try and go along with his argument. Whether his expression was aggressive or teasing, Lupin also couldn't tell.

"Believe me, I will find a way to strut into hell where you will be, Callaway, and then flip you off before going back to heaven," Sirius declared, grey eyes narrowed and finger directly pointed to the girl across from him.

"If I'm going to hell, then you won't have to find me, because I'll already be there with you!" Anneliese exclaimed, eyes widened. "That would be good torture, wouldn't it?"

"What, putting us in the afterlife together?" Black confirmed, and she nodded. "I agree. We would kill each other if we weren't already dead-"

"HOLD UP!"

Anneliese and Sirius both whipped around to see James standing there with both his hands up in the air with his palms facing them, a completely bewildered expression on his face.

Behind him, Peter, Remus, Lily, and Marlene all had the exact same confusion written all over their features.

They had thought that since Sirius and Anneliese had returned together, things had gone well. Yet here the two of them were, arguing their asses off like normal and openly talking about how they wanted to murder one another.

"Lily!" Anneliese exclaimed happily, anger melting off her face as the redhead tackled her in a very tight hug. "Marls!"

Sirius received similar greetings from the boys, but there was still the underlying confusion.

Callaway felt a wave of guilt wash over her as she broke apart from the girls, the realization of the decision that she had made and how it affected everyone else making her not be able to look them in the eyes properly.

Lily quickly noticed this, and her light green eyes darted all over Anneliese's face, looking for more hints besides guilt of what had happened.

"I'm sorry," Callaway said softly, breathing catching in her chest slightly as she turned to James. "He told me that you guys lost the quidditch match against Hufflepuff-"

Potter's expression was more one of concern than anger. He didn't like the way that Anneliese wasn't looking him in the eyes as she always had, it made an uneasy feeling settle across his stomach.

"No, no," James cut her off. "Some things are more important than quidditch, like mental health and that shit. Not 'that shit' like it's not important, but like- you know what I mean."

There was still a ringing waver in his ramble, like something else was going on behind the curtain with Callaway that he didn't know about fully and was making her feel odd.

Anneliese's expression looked that way as well, except she didn't know what was bothering her. Being back at Hogwarts and talking about quidditch should have felt great, but instead it felt like she had made the wrong decision.

These corridors were already reminding her of the times when she had been crying while walking down them, and that wasn't a feeling that Callaway particularly enjoyed reliving.

"You know you can hug me, right?" James asked with a teasing grin to try and lighten the mood. "Especially if you look so depressed to be back- come here, A."

Callaway laughed lightly, and Potter quickly smothered that laugh with a swift motion of his arms.

Over her oblivious shoulder, James gave Sirius a very forceful, confused look as to what was going on between them. Black just raised his eyebrows back sarcastically in return, refusing to give any answers.

Potter just narrowed his hazel eyes in annoyance at the silent, brief, and useless interaction before fully hugging Callaway.

Anneliese wasn't exactly the hugging type when it came to males in general, only ever really having received one from Sirius, Leo, and she assumed her father at some point when she was a child that she couldn't remember.

James, she found, was one of the few exceptions.

Even with that exception, though, there was a small crawling feeling in her stomach, like a spider had grabbed hold of her intestines and was slowly moving it's feet across like small needles, spinning a web of dread and crawling and crawling-

Anneliese snapped out of it when James pulled away.

She found that Sirius was looking at her and Potter oddly, like he himself was confused as well. There was too much going unsaid for any of them to decipher.

"Sooo," Marlene said to try and break the awkward tension, slowly looking at Anneliese with her arms crossed. "Jacket?"

All of the other Gryffindors looked at Black's jacket around Callaway's shoulders as well, either having already noticed it or their eyes being drawn back to it again after it being the first thing they saw coming out into the hallway.

The feeling Anneliese had felt earlier about the leather not belonging on her intensified.

Black and the others watched in confusion as she shrugged off the black jacket and quickly handed it back to him with an almost frantic motion.

The second the trademark jacket was removed from her shoulders, Callaway felt like she could stand up taller and not feel as panicked as she had previously. It was like the leather had been a burdening object full of expectations, and she couldn't bear to have it on a second longer.

"It's his jacket," Anneliese replied shortly.

Sirius had thought he knew what was going on, but now he was just even more confused.

"Okayyy," James said, trying to work out his own thoughts as he adjusted his glasses. "So are you two.. are you two like a thing, or-"

Lily sharply elbowed him in the side. Potter's lack of diplomacy when it came to these kinds of things would never fail to amaze her.

Next to them, a sudden wave of nerves had flooded through Anneliese's gut. This was all incredibly new to her, and she had no idea what being Black's 'girlfriend' meant. It certainly came with high expectations from the Marauders, Gryffindors, school in general, herself, and Sirius, none of which she knew.

"We're on good terms," informed Callaway before Sirius could even open his mouth. "Right?"

"Well, if you count me kissing every one of your tattoos and then you literally begging me for more as us 'being on good terms,' then yes," Black muttered so quietly that only Anneliese could hear him.

Peter watched as Callaway's cheeks turned dark pink and Sirius looked both mildly offended and satisfied out of the reaction he had gotten from her.

"Can I speak to you for a minute?" Anneliese asked Black in a low tone, blush still not fading. "With a bit more privacy?"

Callaway didn't even wait for an answer before pulling him around the corner. The other five Gryffindors watched with narrowed, suspicious eyes as to what they missed, their minds racing to fill in the gaping blanks.

"So are they together or are they not together?" Peter asked, turning to James. "Because they still look like they're arguing a ton."

"I think they know just as much as we do," Lily replied with a frown. "Sirius wasn't expecting for her to give him his jacket back, that much was obvious from his expression."

"Well, I know that something happened in New York," James said. "Sirius can't just say anything to make her blush like that, and he gets that look after.. after he, you know.."

It was very amusing for Marlene, Lily, Peter, and Remus to watch Potter squirm trying to just say he thought that Black and Callaway slept together.

For a boy with so much bravado bordering on arrogance about himself and his reputation that he frequently displayed to the entire school, he certainly got flustered easily when it came to the subject of sex.

"So you're saying Sirius just went to America and had angry sex?" Marlene laughed with raised eyebrows, and Peter snorted in wide eyed amusement. "I mean, fair enough."

"Not fair enough after the amount of time he spent writing that damn letter," Remus said, the serious atmosphere returning. "If he really did mean everything that he said in there, then there's no way that just them sleeping together was all that happened."

"Well, Sirius did say that he was nervous she wouldn't read it at all," Peter pointed out slowly. "So what if she never even opened it?"

"Or what if they both admitted it and they're still acting like this?" Lily countered. "Anything is possible with those two, and they would still be arguing."

There was a pondering, thoughtful silence among them created by Lily's words, all five now trying to figure out what had happened individually if putting all of their minds together to find the answer hadn't worked.

Their gazes turned away from the small huddle they had formed towards the corner that Callaway and Black had gone around a few seconds ago, as if just a look in the right direction would give them answers.

But the Gryffindors knew their friends better than they thought they did, because that exact thing was happening around the corner with the argument.

"What the fuck is this, Callaway?" Sirius asked angrily, holding up the returned jacket in his fist. "Are you mad at me or something?"

"Just because I don't want to wear your damn jacket doesn't mean I'm mad at you!" Callaway said back sharply. "Get over yourself."

"Don't minimize it to that, we both know that you meant something more than just 'not wanting to wear my damn jacket' when you gave this back," Black snapped. "I'm not stupid."

"Could've had me fooled," Callaway retorted, crossing her arms defensively over her chest. "Ever considered that maybe, just maybe, you're reading too much into things, Grey Eyes?"

"So then what?" he asked back, throwing his arms out to either side of him. "I came all the way to New York and we just fucked each other for fun?"

"Don't be crude," Anneliese replied with her nose crinkled at his choice of words.

"Don't be a bitch."

Sirius instantly regretted these words, but the damage was already done.

Callaway's dark blue eyes had narrowed just like they had the first time they argued in the Gryffindor common room.

"It's not my fault that your reputation makes it really hard to date you," Anneliese snapped. "Being Sirius Black's girlfriend doesn't seem very easy."

"So what, you're embarrassed of me?" Sirius asked, both eyebrows raised furiously. "Terrified of what, holding my hand in public? Scared that people are going to think differently of you?"

"Actually, yes," replied Callaway, her brow furrowing. "I've already been labelled as the school slut, new girl, orphan, and god only knows what else! I don't need Black's bitch added onto that!"

"And you call me the one with the ego?" Black asked dubiously, voice raising to a shout. "Holy shit, I didn't realized that you were so self absorbed with what other people thought of you!"

"No, I'm not," Anneliese replied shortly, voice starting to go cold.

"So what then?" Sirius cried, taking a step closer to her. "Are you just embarrassed for everyone to see that 'I won' and I got the girl that didn't want me? Is your pride that damn stubborn, Callaway?"

"You got that one right!" Anneliese exclaimed, her voice raised as well now. "I'm not giving up my self respect to make this public, I just won't do it!"

"So yea, let's pretend that we're just friends!" Sirius shouted. "Let's do that, Callaway, and see how it turns out if you're going to be such a fucking coward!"

"In case you forgot, I'm the one who came back to this shitty school and didn't run away from my problems like you have!" Callaway said bitterly. "So don't call me the coward when you're the one who can't stand staying with their issues!"

"Oh please, I've had it much harder with my past than you ever have," Black hissed. "You just can't face that it's not going to be the easiest thing to have everyone know."

Callaway knew he didn't know what he was talking about, but she wasn't going to say anything.

"Well, I want a fucking break from all the drama," Anneliese groaned. "Accept that."

Sirius and her stared at one another for a few moments, eyes narrowed with anger.

"Fine," he said, not breaking eye contact. "Just let me know when you come out of your little hiding place and decide that you're ready for people to know this terrible secret."

Anneliese swallowed heavily, eyes flicking all across his sculpted features in the torchlight. Sirius immediately felt his already racing heart rate pick up slightly along with a pleasant jolt in his stomach.

"This argument isn't over," Callaway muttered, but his lips were already on her neck. "We're continuing this discussion very soon- shit, Grey Eyes."

"I agree that we need to continue it, because there's no way that I'm letting you keep this a secret," Sirius said against her skin, briefly pulling away. "But you're just very attractive when you're angry."

Anneliese would have replied.

oh, now this is fun

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