February 25, 1977
7:09 pm
Hogwarts Library

The weather was still so frigid on the Hogwarts grounds that the sixth year Gryffindors couldn't study outside as they usually would during sunset, which meant that the library was far from quiet with their presence.

The round table holding the chaotic group of ten teenagers was covered in so many papers that the mahogany underneath was no longer visible and none of them could tell whose notes and textbooks belonged to which one of them.

Anneliese and Peter had successfully knocked over two glass pots of ink each within the first half hour of studying, to the point where all of them gave up on having clean hands free of the excess ink.

The scratching of quills and adjusting of papers mingled with the crackling of the oil lamps on the shelves around them, making the lights dim and them all have to squint their eyes to see the writing against the parchment properly.

Even though the sun had just set a few hours ago, all of the Gryffindors were getting drowsy with the relaxing atmosphere of the library.

Every few minutes, one of them would ask either a deeply thoughtful or completely ridiculous question to the group, which was in turn either met by a glare or equally elaborate response that matched the absurdity of the question.

"I'm going to fall asleep," James declared with a yawn, leaning his head into Peter's shoulder. "Wormy, you make a good pillow."

"I just don't understand why we have to know all seventeen phases of venomous tentacula growth," grumbled Frank. "My mind is going to burst."

"You need to get through Herbology if you want to be an auror with me," Alice replied with a smile. "Come on, I'll help you memorize the acronym that I came up with."

"I need it as well," Dorcas said, scooting her chair closer around the circular table. "But I can't focus because Marlene keeps stealing my notes so that I can't come up with one of my own."

"You have better handwriting than me!" Mckinnon exclaimed emphatically. "We both know I can do a lot with my hands, but penmanship is not one of them-"

"Not while we're studying!" Lily exclaimed, holding up a hand to the couple as she pressed her eyes shut. "Save it for the nighttime, ladies."

"It is night," Anneliese pointed out with a mischievous grin from where she was sitting next to Sirius. "The window says so."

"Well we all know you already have a dirty mind, A," Remus said from directly across the table to her. "So everything says so with you."

"Yea, because I am so sure that those letters you and Leo send back and forth to one another are fully innocent," Callaway countered. "Don't think I haven't noticed that you've started wanting to be alone while you read them."

"And you're always blushing after you come back," Dorcas added on from down the table. "You're not slick, Lupin."

Remus's cheeks blushed furiously as he simply returned to a diagram for the lifecycle of a thestral that was suddenly the most interesting thing in the whole castle.

"You know, I was looking in the muggle section of the library," James said with a mischievous grin as his hazel eyes flitted across the shelves. "And I found this really interesting genre."

"Do we even want to know?" Lily asked, but she had looked up from her notes as well to hear the rest of what he was saying.

"Well, Sirius and Anneliese, I think you will find this very interesting," Potter said with a meaningful glance at his two friends. "Very interesting."

"Just spit it out," Alice said with a roll of her eyes. "We're trying to focus."

Callaway and Black were still both intensely recopying their notes, not looking up at all costs with the slightly nervous anticipation of whatever the hell James was about to say with his usual lack of filter in the equation.

"They're called enemies to lovers."

Remus abruptly snorted directly into the fresh cup of water he had just been drinking from with shock while Alice, Peter and Marlene all burst into a loud fit of uncontrollable laughter at Potter's comparison.

Just across the table from Remus and James, Anneliese and Sirius were keeping their faces as strictly straight as possible without laughing or snapping.

"Mhm," Sirius replied without a shred of visible interest. "That's very interesting, James."

"Yea, it is," James continued, undeterred by his lack of reaction. "Because at the beginning, they start off hating one another. And then they go through a dozen complicated phases."

"Sounds familiar," Peter prodded, starting to catch on with a goofy grin. "Don't we know two people like that, guys?"

"We do," Dorcas confirmed with a nod.

By this point, the eight of them had all looked up from their notes for a brief break as they watched the very amusing scene unfold in front of them.

"And then they confess their love after months and months, but that hardly helps anything," James huffed with a staged sigh. "If only the two people that we knew would confess their love for one another already."

If it were up to Sirius alone, he would have set down his quill in a fragment of a second and then shove Anneliese against one of the bookshelves to show James that he was right.

But instead, he just acted completely oblivious to what his best mate was implying.

"I feel bad for the poor blokes in that story," Sirius replied with a simple shrug. "Seems like an awful lot to go through when you could just snog them- Callaway, can I use your notes on that- thank you."

Potter's eyes widened at Black's quick dismissal of his words.

"Okay, so yea, just snog them then," James said, ready to take Anneliese and Sirius both by the back of their heads and force their lips together if he needed to. "You just gave yourself a solution, Pads."

"But he's not in the story," Callaway cut in with blue, wide eyes that looked like they should belong to someone with much more innocence than she possessed. "So why would he need that as a solution?"

James just slammed his forehead down against the table in response.

Right into a very saturated puddle of bright blue ink.

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" he shouted, pulling his head up. "WHO SPILLED THIS ONE?!"

They all burst into laughter at the stain now dripping off his skin, knowing that it would take a very precise spell to get it out. Unfortunately, his shout had summoned a very angry Madam Pince to their table.

"You ten have been making a ruckus for an hour now!" she exclaimed, practically aparating there with an alarming amount of speed. "Go to your common room if you want to be so noisy, but I will not have you distracting the students that are actually trying to study!"

Papers became airborne and fluttered down to the carpet with how startled all the Gryffinors were at the sudden shout. They all scrambled out of their chairs so fast that Pince almost didn't notice James's forehead.

"Mr. Potter!" she called firmly, and James whipped around from where he was sprinting with wide eyes that he was in even more trouble. "Scourgify."

When Potter touched his fingers up to the skin that had previously been wet with ink, he was relieved to feel that it was dry and clean.

"Thank you, love!" he shouted back, and then followed right behind Sirius to hurry out of the library before house points were taken off.

Meanwhile, Anneliese and Black had sprinted ahead of the rest of their friends, continuing their new habit that started in New York of racing each other wherever they went.

"You're so slow," Callaway teased as they sharply turned a corner. "I thought you had better stamina then this, Grey Eyes."

"I have better stamina than you," Sirius retorted with a smirk. "Just not for running."

Anneliese's eyes widened, and Black took advantage of her slight falter at his comment to wrap an arm around her waist and pull her behind him so that now he was winning their race.

He knew that her cheeks would be pink without even looking behind him.

Out of the many more recent things Sirius was learning about Anneliese, one of the main ones was that she was highly reactive to every touch.

Whether it was full on pressing his lips against her collarbone in a hidden location or slightly brushing his fingertips against her thigh underneath a desk, it didn't take much for Callaway's breath to hitch, knees to go weak, or back to arch even in the slightest.

Which made it even more enjoyable for Black to watch her try and hide her reactions.

Sirius loved to indulge in the pleasurable power that his fingertips and lips possessed over her senses, especially at the times when he could feel that she was barely capable of holding everything in.

No girl he had ever slept with before was so sensitive to his every motion, and it made it very difficult for Black to contain himself around her.

Even the slightest action of Anneliese running her tongue across her teeth with focus while she was taking notes was enough to make Sirius want to pin her against his mattress and figure out just exactly what it would take to satisfy him.

Somehow, it was still never enough to make him stop wanting her against his skin and under his control.

"That's cheating," Anneliese said, catching back up to him as they finally made it to the portrait. "You can't just- why do you look like that?"

Sirius had to blink a few times to snap himself out of it.

"Just thinking about how you-" he started, but then saw the rest of the Gryffindors coming around the corner. "How you always beat me in the races, so I wanted to do something about it this time."

Anneliese raised a blonde eyebrow, knowing good and well that wasn't what he was going to say originally but letting it go because she didn't exactly want all their friends to hear it, either.

"If you two don't stop racing ahead of us, someone is going to think something suspicious is going on," Dorcas teased as she opened the door. "All we need is proof."

"Good luck with that," Sirius said back with his ever growing smirk, and then turned to Anneliese. "After you, darling."

Callaway just rolled her eyes before stepping into the common room after Marlene. James gave his friend a bewildered look at his choice of words, but Black just shrugged cryptically.

"I think we should all not study for the rest of the night," Lily declared, surprising them all. "Our minds need a break, and it's not going to do any good just cramming things in there."

The rest of them all immediately agreed. Evans giving them that idea in the first place was like unspoken permission granted that it was okay to relax.

Sirius sat down on the carpet across from Anneliese where she had pulled out a dull, nearly useless quill and pot of more ink from her bag. Slowly, she began to drag the tip across the inside of her forearm, but not piercing the skin at all.

As Callaway began to draw out an idea for a new tattoo, Black absentmindedly grabbed a cigarette from his pocket while James began to play with the snitch.

The whirring, high pitched sound immediately distracted Anneliese, as if a giant insect was buzzing in her ear with every time that Potter snatched it out from the air.

"I'm the Seeker, so let me do the catching," she grumbled, eyes narrowed with focus on her skin. "Go read one of those lovely enemies to lovers books and don't distract half the common room."

"The buzzing isn't that annoying," James teased, letting the snitch go even closer to her ear. "AND IT'S NOT ANNOYING HALF THE COMMON ROOM, RIGHT GUYS?"

His shout to the other Gryffindors was met with many immediate responses.

"IT DEFINITELY IS, POTTER!"

"Well, I'm distracted now."

"I give up with you stupid sixth years, I'm going to the library."

Callaway laughed slightly at how his point had been proved wrong almost instantly.

"Come on, I don't feel like reading right now," James complained, turning his head back to her.

Sirius grinned widely as Anneliese caught the shiny gold sphere without even looking up.

"I swear to god, I will throw this in the fire-"

Before she even had time to complete the threat, James attempted to snatch the ball back from her hand with a sharp movement.

The smile on Black's face turned to an unsettling frown as he watched Anneliese stand up and run away from Potter with a laugh.

"Give it backk!" James whined, circling the dark maroon chair that Callaway was using as a shield. "I promise that I won't let it buzz near your ear again as long as you don't throw it in the fire."

"Nope," Anneliese replied, examining the snitch closely with theatrically narrowed eyes. "I think I'll just- JAMES!"

Callaway let out a high pitched squeal of shock as Potter grabbed her by the waist just as Sirius had earlier and effortlessly swung her over his shoulder, plucking the snitch right from her hand with a factual motion.

Something inside Anneliese instantly recoiled with the feeling of distinctly male, strong arms on the back of her legs.

Especially while she was wearing a skirt.

Callaway had to remind herself a dozen times within the fraction of a second that this wasn't that foster home or the orphanage and James was not one of those boys.

You're fine here, Anneliese said over and over. This is not that place. These are not those people. You left that life behind in America.

James could feel her stomach muscles tense against his chest, and he set her down faster than a blink with a sudden, guilty feeling in his gut.

But he was already playing with the snitch again a second later.

A few yards away, Black was absolutely furious.

He hadn't yet quite registered that by him and Anneliese not telling people that they were together meant that people thought that Callaway wasn't his.

He hadn't been able to make the point that even if you were just her friend, you didn't touch her in any way.

It's James, the more rational voice that sounded oddly like McGonagall in the back of his head said. He's head over heels in love with Lily Evans, and he just wanted his snitch back. Don't freak out just because he touched her.

But when James finally put Anneliese down and Sirius saw the way she was tugging down the back of her skirt with a confused expression on her gorgeous yet slightly vulnerable features, it made him angry all over again.

♫im picking up really sketch vibes♫

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