The next morning at breakfast, someone hugged me from behind, pressing their cheek to my head.

While I was frozen in surprise, wondering who on earth that was, my dorm mates and the people closest to me fell quiet.

"Thank you," Sirius mumbled quietly, and I could literally feel the grin on his face. "I don't know what you did, but it worked. They heard me out and talk to me again."

There was that weird feeling in my stomach again, and my heart rate sped up.

I turned around to face him, which caused Sirius to let go of me. I was ecstatic to hear that, so I gave him a huge smile.

"That's great Sirius, I'm so happy it worked out!"

He nodded, his smile couldn't possibly be any wider. "I don't know what you said to them, but thank you so much, you're the best!"

Was it possible for a heart to skip a beat and then start beating again at a much quicker pace? Because I thought that had just happened.

"Oh, don't mention it," I said, trying to ignore my intensifieing blush. Instead, I briefly eyed the several gawking students around us. We were causing a scene, I realised. Aleya, Lina and Valerie's eyes were almost popping out of their heads.

Sirius noticed my discomfort and nodded, only hugging me again very briefly. "Still, thank you so, so much. I'll talk to you later."

I didn't even have time to reply before he headed off to the marauders on the Gryffindor table.

And the eyes of very many people sitting at the Ravenclaw table were still on me. Just great.

"What was that about?" Aleya grinned and nudged my ribs.

I swallowed, trying to get my heart rate to finally calm down again. What was wrong with me??

"Oh, I did him a favour, and I think he didn't expect it, so he was surprised and just thanked me now."

"Sure," Lina laughed and winked. "If you say so."

I didn't know what she was implying. I wasn't very good at reading people's emotions, and I had difficulties with reading a room's atmosphere, which was the reason for many weird looks thrown at me, before I had learned to just shut up.

So I did just that and didn't reply verbally, I just nodded.

Then I hurried to finish my breakfast, so that I could flee from the too many eyes sat on me.

Luckily, Aleya was done early, too, so we went to Herbology together.

The school day went by and I continued to wonder what 'I'll talk to you later' meant to Sirius. Before or after dinner, directly after class or even after curfew?

Well, I found out when Sirius blocked my way to the Great Hall before dinner the same day, holding my wrist. My hand tingled.

My friends gave me confused looks or wiggled their eyebrows, and walked into the hall without me.

"I know that you don't want to talk in the Great Hall, so let's just have dinner in the kitchen, okay?" Sirius asked quietly.

My eyes, however, had dropped to where his hand was holding me. I knew that if I looked up, he'd see my blush, and I was way too embarrassed to form proper sentences, too. I just nodded, and Sirius wasted no time in dragging me through the castle and to the kitchen.

He only let go of my wrist once we'd reached the picture of the fruit bowl that we had to tickle when we wanted to enter.

We were instantly surrounded by countless house elves.

"What do Master and Mistress want?"

"Why aren't Master and Mistress eating with the rest of the school?

"What can we do for Master and Mistress?"

Sirius held up one hand, kindly making the elves stop talking. Instead, they all looked at us attentively with their big eyes.

"We thought that we could eat dinner down here, because we wanted to have some privacy to have a talk?"

"If it doesn't bother you," I quickly added. I didn't like the way wizarding families treated the little creatures, and being kind really wasn't that difficult. But hey, at least Sirius didn't command them around like all the old pureblood prejudiced wizarding families did.

"Of course not," One of the elves squeaked and snapped his finger. There was a 'pop' and a wooden table with two chairs on either side appeared. On the table were steaming plates full of chicken, mashed potatoes and vegetables.

Sirius smirked, walked forward and pulled one chair back. "My Lady," he said in a posh voice.

I blushed (yeah, I know, again) and luckily restrained myself from giggling - I mean, how embarrassing would that have been?? So I smiled and sat down with a mocking "Thank you, dear gentleman."

Sirius sat down on the opposite chair and didn't wait a second with poking his fork in a piece of meat.

When he chewed on it, he looked at me, his eyes shining.

"So?" Sirius asked after he'd swallowed. "What did you do?"

I thought back to the previous evening. What exactly had I done, that made Remus change his mind?

"I had to patrol with Remus, and I sort of.... Um... Annoyed him and continued talking even though he pretended he didn't listen."

Sirius tilted his head, amused. "You didn't exactly strike me like the kind of person that would just continue talking, you're always so shy."

I shrugged and tried to keep my voice casual. "I can talk a lot, I've just stopped doing that. I've always loved telling stories and talking to people, but they never listened, were annoyed and cut me off."

Sirius looked genuinely confused. He even lowered his mashed potatoe.

"Really!? I can't imagine people getting annoyed by you! I love talking to you."

I almost choked on a bean. I tried my hardest not to wheeze and caugh like Darth Vader having an Asthma attack, but I don't think I had any success.

And once I was finally able to breathe again, I was in desperate need to change the topic, or I feared that I'd really die. Who knew what else I might get into the wrong throat.

"Yeah," I croaked, trying to hide the tears in my eyes. I swallowed, hard, and cleared my throat once more. "Anyway, I had a little help from two little first years, but I basically reminded - or tried to remind - Remus of how incredibly strong your friendship is, and that small arguments could never break that bond... I mean, others would die to have a friendship like you four."

Sirius was quiet for a little while. Then he said something that made me wish he'd compliment me again, instead of talking about that. I preferred almost choking over that topic, I mean.

"You sound like you know what you're talking about... Is everything okay with Aleya, Lina and Valerie? They are your best friends, aren't they?"

I ate a little piece of meat before answering slowly. "Yes, everything is okay with them, we get along great."

Sirius suspiciously tilted his head. "You don't sound very convincing."

"They are great friends!" I insisted. "But I know that all of them only turn to me last. I'm not complaining, though! They are still amazing friends and always there for me," I shrugged my shoulders again. "I don't know, I just get the feeling that I'm always annoying everyone and that people only spend time with me because they feel obligated to do so."

"Don't say that!" Sirius furrowed his eyebrows. "That can't be true, you're super likable! I'm sure they love you. I immediately liked you, too!"

Luckily, I didn't have anything in my mouth this time, or I would have choked for sure.

I smiled, my chest feeling all warm and fuzzy. "Thank you."

"Honestly, I regret not talking to you these past years," He grinned.

I laughed. "Yeah, maybe my head would've recovered until the NEWTs, if we'd played Quidditch sooner."

"Heey," Sirius complained, wrinkling his forehead in a really cute way. But he laughed, and I felt really great and oddly proud that I had managed to make him laugh.

The rest of our little dinner went by swimmingly. Sirius joked around and I had managed to not have any other almost-choking-incidents.

We just did random small talk, and we discovered that we were both interested in the career paths of Aurors. Funny that we had both decided to keep Arithmancy anyways.

Once we were done, we had to convince the house elves to not bury us in sweets and pastries, and managed to leave with only a pumpkin pastry in each of our hands.

Looking at my watch, I realised with a shock that it was almost curfew- we hadn't eaten that long, though, I could've sworn!

"Oh, we should both hurry to get to our common rooms in time," I said with a look at Sirius. "The Gryffindor tower is pretty far from here."

"Oh, don't worry about me," Sirius winked, sinking his teeth into a pastry. "I know my way around here."

I didn't have any doubts that Sirius knew short cuts. So I was the one who really had to hurry. "Of course you do," I muttered under my breath, and Sirius' smile widened. My smile automatically widened, too. "I'll see you tomorrow in Charms, then?"

The Gryffindor nodded, smiling. "See you tomorrow, Freya. It was really nice talking to you."

With that, we turned around and went our separate ways.

My head was probably redder than a tomato.

On my way to the common room, I kept replaying dinner in my head, with the hugest smile on my face, my heart beating rapidly in my chest.

Only once I'd entered my common room, I came to a sudden and shocking realisation.

Blushing even more than usual, the fuzzy and warm feeling in my chest and stomach and my rapid heart beat.

I was crushing on Sirius Black!

So, do we want a ship name? Fririus? Sireya? Any suggestions, lol?

My school officially started again today, but I'm on a field trip this week, so I'm currently sitting in a train, writing as much as I can before the stress of school will swallow me up whole.

I hope you like it!

Don't shy away from giving feedback :)

Stay happy!

Xoxo, your fangirl