When I arrived in front of the painting leading to the kitchen, Sirius was already there.

His hands were in the pockets of his trousers and he gave me a cheeky grin.

Without even realising it, I beamed at him. "Hi."

"Good morning, Freya." Sirius looked at the picture of the fruits and then at me. "I'll explain when we're inside, okay?"

I nodded, trying to not make my giddiness too obvious. I loved surprises.

Sirius tickled the pear and we went into the kitchen. Like the last time we'd been here, the house elves instantly swarmed around us.

Sirius glanced at them and then directed his sparkling dark eyes at me. "I've written a letter to your sister, since you seemed so down the day before yesterday and I wanted to cheer you up. She told me that you like baking and cooking and I thought that maybe... We could do that?"

I didn't know what I'd expected, but that certainly hadn't been it. My heart swell and my eyes started to prickle with emotion. What had I done to deserve him?

Appartently, Sirius misinterpreted the silence and my watering eyes. His eyes widened ever so slightly. "Of course we don't have to, you know? We can do whatever you want to do!"

A laugh escaped me, but since my throat was clogged up with emotions, it kind of sounded like a snort. The grin on my face couldn't be misinterpreted, though, so Sirius started to smile again, too.

"Thank you," I whispered.

He shook his head, his smile widening even more. "It's nothing, really." He bumped my shoulder. "I love that you have so low expectations that you're so easy to make happy."

My heart fluttered at his words and I tried my best to not let tears escape my eyes again. Merlin, I was so happy.

Since the house elves had watched us attentively, Sirius looked at them and asked them, after a quick glance at me. "If it's alright with all of you to share the kitchen with us?"

The house elves nodded and skimmed away to clear us a spot on the large kitchen board.

We followed them, and when we arrived, Sirius clapped his hands and gave me an expecting look.

"So, because the Blacks have house elves, I've never cooked or baked in my entire life. That means you'll have to coach me."

Still grinning, I nodded. It was a weird thought to me that people could spend their entire lives without having to cook once, but that didn't dampen my enthusiasm to spend a great day with Sirius. "Okay."

"So, what do you want to do? Something chocolate-y, right?"

I didn't even remember how Sirius knew that. My soul almost left my body out of pure happiness. "You can choose between chocolate cake or brownies. I know the recipes for both. Oh, or American style cookies! I love those!"

Sirius smiled at me. "I get the feeling that you want to bake cookies, so let's do them."

I nodded. "Okay, so you can get us brown and white sugar, and eggs. I'll get flour, butter and chocolate drops."

Sirius gave me a mock salute and went off. I mentally checked if I'd forgotten anything, but when I didn't think of anything else, I got everything we needed.

"What now?" Sirius asked when we'd both gotten everything and met again at the counter.

"I can't remember how much of everything we need, so we'll just try and see what tastes best."

The corner of Sirius' lip twitched amusedly, but he nodded. "Aye aye, Commander Tygris."

After taking out the hugest bowl he could find, Sirius started of with pouring in unhealthy amounts of white and brown sugar.

We'd make lots of cookies, then.

After adding the butter, I handed Sirius two eggs. "Crack them, and put them in, but try to not drop eggshells in the bowl."

Sirius eyed the eggs. He looked deep in thought. Then he took out his wand, his eyes not leaving the eggs. "Diffi-"

I snorted with laughter. "What are you doing!? Just crack them."

Sirius gave me an indignant look and pocketed his wand again. "I told you I've never cooked or baked before! How am I supposed to know how to crack eggs!?"

I was too busy with laughing to answer. Something about this situation- probably Sirius' expression and how clueless he was - was so wholesome and funny to me that I had to bend over and laugh.

"Hey!" Sirius complained. He pretended to be offended, but the amused glint in his eyes and his twitching lips were telling me that he was suppressing his laughter as well.

I managed to calm myself down soon enough and took one egg from him. "I thought that you knew the basics... Sorry, my bad." I tried to suppress my grin, but to no avail.

"Now, you take the egg, then you crack it open with the edge of the bowl," I demonstrated, hitting the edge of the bowl with the egg in my hand. "Now you use the crack to tear the egg apart and let the egg white and egg yolk fall inside the bowl. See?"

But I'd spoken too soon, because the shell splintered in my hands and, despite my attempts to save the project, I dropped some eggshells.

This time, it was Sirius who snickered. "So, the more eggshell the merrier? That's how you do it?"

I turned to him with my hands on my hips, giving him a playful glare. My cheeks were red from embarrassment. "Arse."

Sirius gasped. He laid one hand on his chest and took the other one to reach out for the bag of flour. Before I could completely register what was going on, I had a handful of flour in my face.

A white cloud surrounded my head, and since everything happened so fast, I wasn't quick enough to close my mouth either, and inhaled the dry powder.

Which resulted in a caughing fit, and I basically coughed the flour off of my face, making the cloud even bigger.

Meanwhile, Sirius was shaking with laughter. Once I had regained my posture, I took the empty and cracked eggshells from earlier and crunched them down on his head.

His hair is so soft!, a voice in me whispered.

Shut up!, I scolded myself.

"Eeew," Sirius laughed and slapped my hands away from his precious dark curls, trying to brush the splinters out.

Now we were both in hysterics.

Once Sirius was happy with his hair and we'd both calmed down, he eyed me, still smiling. "I never noticed that your eyes are so grey," he said out of the blue.

It was so random that I chuckled again. "What?"

Sirius pointed at my head, the smirk widening. "Now that your head is all white and colourless, your eyes look really grey. I always thought they were just blue."

"They are blue, too," I answered a little flustered. I tried shake the flour out of my hair to distract myself. "They are a dark blueish grey, and depending on what I'm wearing or standing next to, they either look grey or blue. The blue is more obvious because I always have dark blue bags under my eyes, and they emphasise the colour. "

I cringed a little when I realised that I'd basically just held a monologue about the colour of my eyes.

Control your damn mouth, Freya, you're embarrassing yourself!

But the awkwardness disappeared when Sirius nodded. "They're pretty."

My face was burning. "Thanks... Erm, yours, too?"

He chuckled. "Thanks."

I wanted the floor to swallow me up. I couldn't deal with compliments, especially not when they came from Sirius, a boy I was falling in love with.

And when I was stressed out, racking my head for a reply, that was the first thing that had slipped out of my mouth.

Help.

It was true, though. Sirius' deep grey eyes never failed to mesmerise me.

Just like they were doing now.

It was too late when I realised that I'd gotten lost once again, and had started to lean in.

My body had a mind of its own!

Sirius was so close to me!

My heart rate sped up, exactly like all these weeks ago at the black lake.

Should I lean in even more?

I wanted nothing more... But was it worth the risk?

What do you have to lose?, my heart seemed to ask.

The best friendship you've ever had!, my mind screamed as an answer.

I was a mind-person. And too scared to make the first move.

"Let's continue baking," Sirius grinned as if nothing had happened.

Puh, at least I hadn't been too obvious.

I cleared my throat. "Yeah. Erm... Let's wash our hands first, and then we can continue."

I must say, Sirius turned out to be a natural at cracking open eggs without dropping shells in the bowl.

Of course he didn't let me live that down.

Throughout the rest of our time spent baking, he continued to call himself 'Master of the eggs', which had me howling in laughter at the ambiguity.

Once Sirius had caught up on that, too, he joined my laughing fits and almost cried.

When the cookies were done and cooled down a little, we both took one and gently bumped them on each other.

"To us," Sirius grinned.

"To us," I repeated, beaming, and let the warm biscuit bless my taste buds.

It actually surprised me that they had turned out so well!

Sirius' eyes were shining, too. "They are great!" He exclaimed after swallowing the first bite.

"Yes," I agreed enthusiastically. The serotonin level in my body at that moment must have been off the charts.

What else could I say? These biscuits had been baked with love.