March 2, 1977
3:09 pm
Black Lake

As if the coming of March was Mother Nature's cue to suddenly make things warm once more, springtime hit the Hogwarts grounds practically overnight. All of the leftover snow had melted away to reveal delicately growing, spindly flowers against the bright green mosses and grass, filling the air with a subtle and natural perfume.

The formerly frozen Black Lake was suddenly occupied again by dozens of groups of students studying all across the various shores, basking in the bright sunlight that warmed their skin against the still chilly wind.

Underneath a particularly large willow tree, Sirius, Anneliese, James, Remus, and Marlene were all working together on a very complex Water-Making Charm that even Remus was struggling with slightly.

The cream colored blanket they had smuggled down from the common room to sit on was thoroughly soaked by their various attempts at getting the perfect sphere of water they were required to perform on their N.E.W.T.s, and Marlene was wet as well from Anneliese's latest attempt.

"I swear to Merlin, if you miss one more time I will snap your wand in half," Marlene declared, wringing out her dripping hair onto the blanket. "Or I'll push you in the Black Lake myself."

"I'd like to see you try," Anneliese said back tartly. "I'm a very good swimmer from Ilvermorny, and some lake is nothing compared to the Atlantic."

"Care to test that theory?" Mckinnon prompted, narrowing her eyes at Callaway, who just rolled her dark blue ones teasingly in response. "That's what I thought."

Anneliese just smirked slightly before picking up her wand again from where Marlene had thrown it down on the blanket.

Sirius just stared at Callaway's wand warily from across the blanket, not wanting to be in the path of her spell this time. Anneliese had many strengths, but precision with her spells wasn't one of them.

She was brilliant at detecting patterns in the charms themselves and figuring out how they worked, but getting one that she didn't invent down to the slightest flick of her wrist was never something she had been perfect at.

"Okay, Remus, you try the spell again before I embarrass myself," Anneliese said, turning to the tall boy with a grin.

To her slight surprise, Lupin seemed very out of it. His fingers were carefully twirling around the delicate stem of a light pink flower, and his green eyes were staring at the bloom like he was looking for something that simply wasn't there.

"Are you alright?" Callaway asked with concern. "Remus?"

Snapping out of his daze with that forlorn expression, Remus turned to Anneliese with as much of a smile as he could muster and nodded his head in recognition that he was alright.

James gave Lupin a very condemning, almost stern and scolding expression that a mother would show to her child, knowing exactly what he was thinking of.

Two nights ago had been the full moon of February, and Remus had realized something that hadn't stopped bothering him since. An odd, sickening feeling went through his stomach whenever he thought of it, making him want to throw up and cry at the same time.

His peers had been very correct that things with Leo were becoming quite a bit more intense.

With every letter, both of them learned a dozen new things about the other, whether it be something as small as how they drew their exclamation marks or as large as their greatest fear.

Both of them could feel the other falling even harder with every stroke of their quill.

Yet for Remus, he felt like he was hiding something from Leo, a part of him that would either break everything or something that Anderson would hopefully not care about.

And he had all the reasons to feel that way, because being a werewolf was no easy thing.

Lupin had been immensely stressing out over every letter to Leo, not wanting to make the American like him even more and then that all fell apart when he inevitably found out the truth one way or another.

But instead of saying anything, he just settled for the classic Remus response.

"I'm fine."

Anneliese just looked at him oddly for a few seconds before internally deciding that it wouldn't be worth it to push the clearly stressed boy even further.

"I'll try it," James declared, picking up his wand and running a hand through his hair. "All I know is that I can't be as bad at it as Anneliese, so that's a reassurance."

Callaway just stuck her tongue out at Potter, who did the same right back. Sirius was in between amusement and slight jealousy again, but ended up pushing himself morally to just grin and not be a dick.

"Aguamenti," James said clearly, pointing his wand in the general direction of the lake and moving his arm with a zigzag motion.

Instead of water spurting from the end of the wand as it was supposed to, Potter had somehow managed to make the clear liquid flow from the handle and all down his shirt so that he became soaking as well.

Even Remus was laughing as James furiously crossed his arms like a child and refused to acknowledge any of their taunts towards him.

"What was that you were saying about being worse than A?" Sirius asked with a laugh. "Bet a bag of orange taffy from Honeydukes that I can do it right now."

"You've already failed like eight times," Anneliese pointed out with a giggle at his confidence. "So I wouldn't be so certain."

"Shut up, Callaway," Sirius said, but he was grinning as well. "If this works, I'm going to make sure that you're all wet."

Don't need a spell for that, Anneliese thought against her will, and then felt her cheeks blush furiously at the vivid picture her mind had created. Oh my lord, what the fuck is he doing to my brain?

"Aguamenti," Sirius said, head turned away from her, narrowing his eyes in concentration.

To all of their surprise, a perfect stream of pure water came from his wand and magically molded into a sphere a foot or so away from his face. Then, with another flick of his wrist, the water flew over to the Black Lake and disposed of itself by joining the reflective surface.

"And that is how it's done," he said with a casual shrug of his shoulders as if he hadn't been intensely concentrating only seconds before. "James, you owe me taffy."

"Show off," Anneliese muttered with another roll of her eyes. "Now you have to help the rest of us learn it if you're so good."

"Fine," Sirius said, genuine smile twitching at the corners of his mouth that he had impressed Callaway, even if she didn't show it. "I'm probably a better professor than Flitwick."

James, Marlene, and Remus all chimed in with their agreement as Anneliese rolled her eyes yet again at Black's overconfidence that was somehow almost always fulfilled.

"Okay, so how," she said, giving up a shred of pride as she stared at the wand in her hand. "Because this spell seems like it's intentionally working against me."

A gust of wind blew through the swaying willows they were sitting under, making Sirius's hair flutter in his face slightly and a gentle rustling sound put them all more at ease.

Dozens of ripples softly made their gradual, sloped grooves in the mirror-like surface of the dark water, disrupting the reflection of the two Gryffindors sitting next to one another.

With the new hair in his face, Black quickly tied the thick, black strands back into a bun. It didn't manage to capture all of them, though, and a few fell down to perfectly frame his chiseled cheekbones.

Anneliese was genuinely captivated for a few seconds before blinking and forcing her eyes away from his face and hands with their precise, swift movements.

Just next to them, James wasn't sure if he was imagining the path Callaway's eyes or not.

"You're moving your wrist wrong," Sirius told Anneliese, moving slightly closer to her on the blanket while she extended her arm towards the lake. "It's not as much of a zigzag motion, more of a loose kind of sway."

Callaway just looked at him with scrunched up eyebrows in confusion of what he meant.

"Here, let me show you," Black said, closing the distance next to her so that their shoulders were then touching. "You look very attractive when you're trying to focus on something, by the way."

That last part was said under his breath and almost directly in her ear, and it was taking everything in Anneliese's power to keep her breath completely steady.

"We have got to learn how to read lips," James muttered to Marlene from across the blanket. "That way we can figure out what the hell those two are saying when they whisper to each other like that."

"I think Sirius's expression is enough to tell," Marlene replied, grinning slightly. "We just need to figure out a way to prove it."

"Good luck with that," Remus said, leaning his head into their conspiratorial huddle as well. "We know what we all think, but those two are masters of secrecy. We really have no proof to confirm anything. Yet."

"Keyword yet," James said with a smile. "I mean, look at them right now. They're so oblivious that we're even talking about them."

Sure enough, the world really had faded away to just the two of them for Sirius and Anneliese.

Black's hand had moved around her wrist to guide it in the spell properly, as well as his fingers on top of hers to hold the wand firmly. They were both much more focused on trying not to snap from even this simple touch more than the spell itself, which was proving very difficult.

Sirius could smell her shampoo, the Strawberry Fields one, at his nose as well as that sensation of her tanned, freckled skin against his that only added to the amount of tension he was trying to hold in.

Anneliese in turn suddenly wished that they were alone, with just his lips this close to her neck making her need to shift her legs uncomfortably.

"Are you going to do the damn spell or not?" Marlene prompted mischievously, snapping both of them out of their trances with a slight jolt. "Or are we no longer welcome here? You two need some privacy?"

"Why would we need privacy?" Sirius asked, pulling away from Anneliese with a smirk. "It's just helping her get the movement down for a spell, Marls."

"I stand by the eye fucking comment I made earlier in Charms," James muttered to Remus, who snorted with surprise. "You can't tell me you disagree, Moony."

Lupin just grinned and shook his head.

Before Anneliese could actually attempt the spell, three loud shouts came from outside the willow's natural drapes that blocked out the sixth years from the rest of the grounds. Then, the vines were parted by a very out of breath Lily with Peter and Dorcas behind her.

"Potter, someone stole your cloak!" she said with a panicked voice. "Peter was looking for it, and then it was just missing! We've looked everywhere, but it's really valuable, and-"

"WHO?!" James shouted, angrily standing up. "I'M GOING TO KILL THEM!"

"I've told you a dozen times to stop flaunting that you own that thing because it'll bite you in the ass," Remus said with a sigh and a disapproving shake of his head. "It's about time you learned your lesson and someone took it."

"Ass bitten," James grumbled, furiously running out from the willow to go try and find it.

"To avoid an angry, pouting James for the rest of the week, I think we should all try and look," Lily said with a slightly distressed expression. "That thing means the world to him."

"Second only to his Lily flower," Anneliese teased, and Lily's cheeks tinged with a soft, rose petal. "Blushing, are we?"

"Shut up," Lily grumbled, and then turned to the others on the blanket. "I think we should all split up and look before that thing is gone forever. Remus, Peter, come to the library with me?"

The two boys got up and quickly followed after Lily, while Dorcas and Marlene were too busy holding hands and running away to notice that they had only left Anneliese and Sirius behind.

"We really should look for it," Callaway said emphatically as she turned her gaze away from the previously parted willow vines that were still swaying slightly to Black once the others had all left. "It's one of a-"

Sirius was just smirking back at her with the cloak in his hand.

Anneliese's dark blue eyes widened, and she didn't know whether to be impressed or shocked that he had borrowed it from his best mate without saying anything first.

Then again, Black hardly ever asked for permission.

"I think James will be just fine if we borrow this to sneak off somewhere a bit more private for a moment, don't you think?" he asked with a slow smirk.

Anneliese didn't need him to say it again. Less than a minute later, they had found a rather quiet patch of shore completely covered on all sides by large, steely boulders right by the beach.

Callaway hadn't known that the Black Lake had sand on any parts of it, but she certainly did once her legs hit it.

Sirius immediately steered them over to the edge where the water was a few inches deep, and didn't waste any time in pressing his lips against hers once they were down.

James would have been furious to see him carelessly toss the cloak aside.

Her legs were wrapped around his waist in the water, and Black was thoroughly enjoying getting them freezing cold with the water so that all they could do was press their bodies together for warmth.

Anneliese's skin prickled as Sirius's hand went to the back of her thigh under her skirt under the clear water, and she let out a tiny gasp when he used his second one to slide up her back.

Callaway had heard people joking and teasing one another about having sex in the water at Ilvermorny at night when nobody would find them, but the idea always seemed ridiculous and mildly amusing to her.

Now, though, she understood why they must have gotten ahold of that concept in the first place.

Everything felt heightened in the water even if she was just an inch or so in, everything more vulnerable and therefore more reactive.

The soaking of her skin made her shudder, and that tremble combined with the one that came over her when Sirius's lips or fingertips touched her body was a doubled overload of electricity for Anneliese that she could hardly stand.

Black thoroughly enjoyed watching the surprise on her face at the very new sensation throbbing throughout her body.

"What, you've never made out in a lake before?"

"Are you fucking serious?"

"Technically, you do that more than me-"

Anneliese was about to laugh before a completely different sound escaped her lips when Sirius scratched his nails gently against her now exposed stomach.

Black slowly started to kiss her neck as the water rippled all around them.

Anneliese's skirt was plastered to her thigh as it was slightly exposed to the chilly air, and Sirius moved it back away to fill his eyes with the gorgeous sight of that tattoo on her skin again.

But for some reason, the action of adjusting her skirt made a shot of anger go through him. All Black could think of was when she was tugging the hem down after James had picked her up, and that made him angry.

Callaway could feel the contact of his lips on her skirt turn from teasing and gentle to something much more harsh, as if he had suddenly forgotten that he was the only one that could make her feel this way.

A wash of insecurity came over Sirius, one that he loathed feeling.

Ever since he was little, there had been the constant statement enforced upon him that he was far from enough, far from ever being worthy of anything.

On top of the fact that he was constantly failing at being the perfect Black as he was expected, his parents still wanted to make sure to remind him of that and make it hurt with every opportunity that they could even if he was the disappointing lost cause.

Those scars that Anneliese had noticed months ago still felt fresh along with his desire to be enough and be the one in control.

Be the one who hurt before someone could hurt him.

That was why Sirius had such a reputation of being a player, one that he lived up to. Black was terrified of forming a connection with someone more than getting them knocked up, terrified because he didn't want to get hurt.

Him always being deprived of positive touch only increased his lust as he got older and older, now to the point where he would do anything to make sure that he got that security of being on Anneliese as often as possible.

But when things were starting to poke at that bone deep insecurity he possessed from being the disappointing, abused Black, things like a simple touch from another boy, Sirius suddenly felt two emotions he despised.

Fear and desperation.

As his touch intensified, Anneliese was starting to have mental tremors of her own.

One thing about Sirius was that he was intense, but made sure that she was okay at all times. He could detect any hesitation in a second, and even if it was just the slightest break of their contact, he would give her an opportunity to pull away.

Although Black wasn't doing anything that she wasn't comfortable with or that she didn't like, Anneliese was starting to feel like he wasn't going to pull away.

Her breath hitched as her mind unwillingly went to the foster home, and all of the sudden, Sirius was no longer there.

In his place was that older brother, the one who had looked at her oddly since the beginning, the one who had accidentally walked in on her showering too many times, the one who had-

Both of them suddenly pulled away from one another with breathless gasps.

That kiss had turned from something mischievous and dirty to something angry and cruel to both of their minds.

Anneliese's palms planted themselves in the sand to pull herself up from her vulnerable position with her back against the sand as her expression looked like one she had desperately tried not to wear since she was fourteen years old.

In turn, Sirius's grey eyes went wide with something between apology and raw, untamed hurt.

Both of them had seen brief flashes of the other's darkest sides before, like when Sirius hexed Anneliese for calling him a disappointment and when she started creating those spells to try and get her anger at everything out.

But now, right in the heat of what should have been a purely pleasurable experience, something else had happened.

Something bad.

god, it's brutal out here

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