YOUR NEXT B O L D MOVE {sirius.}

[ELANORA MELROSE RIGBY]

Were one capable of looking into the mind of another – specifically, the mind of the female fifth-year who happened to be in the process of conjuring every distinctly profane word or phrase she could recall into the forefront of her mind – one may very well have been appalled by what they ended up seeing flitting around inside. Unless, of course, one enjoyed continuous slurs of profanities or curses vexing the cruel higher powers of the universe, in which case Elanora Rigby was easily the go-to girl – especially, if one was able to catch her during any of the ten minutes which presently separated the class times of Arithmancy and History of Magic.

Ten minutes. Ten minutes. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a very long amount of time. When these short minutes happened to be the only things which lay between the end of Arithmancy and the start of History of Magic, two consecutive classes which happened to be six floors apart and in entirely different wings of the castle, any student interested in keeping a record void of tardies and detentions for lateness experienced a moderate amount of pressure to rush down the many, many staircases which divided the two classrooms. Elanora was one such student; unfortunately, rather than taking two steps per stride, the young woman could be found descending ever so slowly, with, perhaps, three shuffles with each foot per step she managed to reach.

To say the very least, ‘catching’ Elanora during this time would scarcely be difficult – for any of those mind-readers amused by deceivingly mild-mannered young women whose thoughts consisted of outrageous threats against their very creator, the fifth-floor stairwell was, at that moment, the perfect place to be. Quite honestly, an old woman with two hip replacements, a right bad knee, and a missing left leg was just about the only person in the world who couldn’t beat Elanora down a staircase – not just this one, but any sort of staircase at all – and that was probably only because that old woman was confined to a wheelchair, and had to take a ramp. Oh, if Ela could just use that ramp – where were the ramps in Hogwarts, anyway? Didn’t they have handicapped people? Like, ever? If the school hadn’t had any such handicapped individuals before, that changed when Ela became a first year. The young woman - at a whopping fifteen years of age - was definitely stair-retarded.

There were a couple of contributing factors to the disability – first, there was the fact that she had fallen down a number of flights of stairs during her second year and had very nearly plummeted to her death due to a staircase suddenly deciding to change position with her on it. Since then she kept a five-fingered death-grip on the railing every time she went either up or down on a staircase. That alone was usually enough to get her to move at a more normal pace; however, the obnoxious number of books she had to carry between Arithmancy and History of Magic – at least, if she wanted to be prepared for class, which she regularly did - prohibited her from keeping a sturdy grip on the fickle stair. Two or three books alone easily weighed twenty pounds, and it took both hands to carry them without having a limb fall off. So, rather than sitting down and sliding her bum from stair to stair like some five-year-old would do, Ela decided to face her predicament with at least some of what little dignity she possessed: she stayed upright in an incredibly awkward-looking position, twisting her torso so that it bent slightly to the curve of the rail, and leaned all one-hundred and twenty-so pounds of leverage she had to offer onto the resolute marble, books clutched to her chest, sliding her way along. Sure, it looked a little strange. That’s why she waited for all the other students to pass before she went on her own, particularly unmerry way to her next class. Which left her only eight minutes to get where she was going, mind you. Honestly, the young woman had no clue how she ever managed to make it on time.

She had managed the majority of the journey without complication, and was a mere four sets of steps away from her dreaded destination when she had to stop and use time she didn’t have to sweep away the static-maddened hair which had begun to cling rather violently to her face. After releasing an aggravated noise that was somewhere between a sigh and a growl, Ela bent and dropped her books somewhat haphazardly at her feet, freeing her hands to brush the devoted strands of auburn back into their proper place. She straightened up quickly at the sound of a snigger, her only known company being the portraits on the wall, and made a single remark that came out sounding surprisingly like a promise. Very few times in her life was Elanora a threatening person. When she was flustered and frustrated was one of those few times.


”Laugh, and I’ll make you my personal ramp.”







It certainly wasn't a question.

[• SIRIUS ORION BLACK]

Sirius, unlike the majority of the population of Hogwarts, was in no hurry to get to his next class. Rushing about and perspiring would do nothing for his looks, and if he was moving so quickly, he wouldn't be giving the young women of Hogwarts much time to admire him now would he? The only thing good that could come out of Sirius making haste to get to class would be the lucky girls behind him who would have the perfect view of his backside as he went. It went along with his theory that most of the girls in the school hate to see him go, but love to watch him walk away. Aside from giving females ample time to look at him, Sirius pace was due to his indifference of being tardy. What was one more tardy on top of the multiple ones he had accumulated over the years? For Sirius Black, bad conduct marks and detentions were inevitable so he saw no point in trying to avoid them.

Sirius strolled to his next class with the casually grace that most young men wish they had. For Sirius, this took no effort at all, it was simply natural for him to carry all his books with one had while making them seem virtually weightless, and to have his shoulder-length black hair swing ever so slightly with his movements. If a piece of hair feel in front of his eyes, he would simply comb his hair back with his hand, a motion that girls seemed to love. Occasionally, Sirius would stop to say hello to a group of girls or enthusiastically greet some fellow Gryffindors, which usually involved a snide remark about a nearby Slyhterin.

As casually as his pace was, it was inevitable that Sirius would reach the steps, but luckily he had reached after all of the other students had already gone through. Well, all of them, except one girl who seemed to be having some trouble. From Sirius' angle, he couldn't tell if the girl was sincerely physically handicapped, terrified of stairs, or if she was just extremely bizarre. He could tell, however, that she was a Ravenclaw so he had to imediately exclude any notion that the girl may be unconcerned about tardiness. He decided to settle on his theory of a handicap because no physically able person would willing act in such a way that would invoke a lot of teasing. Still, even Sirius wasn't cruel enough to make fun of a handicapped person, except for Snape whom Sirius considered to be handicapped in a number of ways.

The Ravenclaw seemed to be under the assumption that she was all alone so Sirius kept his distance so the girl would believe as much. Clearly, she didn't want many people to see her descending the stairs like this and Sirius couldn't blame her; if he had the same problem, he would probably borrow James' invisibility cloak for every time he had to use the stairs. And Sirius could only imagine how any girl would feel to have THE Sirius Black witness an embarrassing moment for them.

When the girl finally got to the bottom of the stair, Sirius let out an internal sigh of relief, until the girl dropped her books on the floor. Still assuming that the girl was something physically wrong with the girl, Sirius quickly made his way down to help by sliding down the opposite banister. One he landed on the marble floor at the bottom of the stairs, he quickly swooped down and picked up the books for the girl, as he wasn't entirely sure of she was capable of doing it for herself.

"Here," he said kindly as he handed the books to the Ravenclaw before turning to the offending portrait, "don't you have a girls bathroom to spy on or something?" he said angrily. The portrait shot him a nasty look before stalking off out of his frame. When Sirius turned back to the girl, he finally realized who she was and she certainly wasn't handicapped. It was Ela Rigby. Usually, it took Sirius much longer to come up with the name of a random female at the school, but this female was different. This happened to be the girl that Remus Lupin had a little crush on and how fitting it was! The two had to be two of the most painfully awkward people Sirius had ever encountered in his life. Of course, Remus had yet to have the balls to talk to Ela no matter how much Sirius and James taunted him about it. Perhaps it was time for some divined intervention in the form of Sirius Black.

"Why Ela, I had recognized you from all the way at the top of the stairs," he said with a smile, "having a bit of trouble are we?"

[ELANORA MELROSE RIGBY]

It took a moment for it to register in Ela’s head that she was no longer alone. Sure, she heard the soft thump the other individual had made when they had reached the bottom. The other student had even begun to talk after that, even if the individual’s words weren’t exactly directed towards her. It was only after Elanora was finally able to tame the mass of malignant locks she had for a head of hair and properly set them smooth and back into place where they actually belonged, that she realized the set of hands holding out her books were definitely not hers.

Elanora was not your average young woman; she didn’t spend hours planning an outfit, or dream continuously about boys. But, regardless of how unordinary the girl may have seemed, she wasn't so different when it came to some things. There was one fork in the road where all the young ladies – including Ela herself – met and took a left. Coincidentally, Sirius Black happened to be standing at the end of that street. Unless you were Severus Snape himself, the street on the right didn’t look quite as attractive, for very obvious reasons. The Ravenclaw wasn’t a direct member of the Black’s fan club, but that didn’t stop her from sharing one thought in particular with them at that moment: ‘OHMYGOD.’ Granted, the thought as Ela used it now had a somewhat different connotation when compared to how those infinite Sirius-lovers might have used it. It was not only the fact that she happened to have the man’s complete and direct attention, nor was it the fact that he was, in fact, just as drop-dead gorgeous as was rumored – though, of course, Ela had already known that. What she hadn’t known was that up-close, the boy was about twenty times more dashing than when one saw him in a passing glance. And there he was, standing not a foot away, gallantly holding out the books she had dropped after he’d watched her walking like a cripple down the last flight of stairs.

‘OhmyGod’ was definitely an appropriate mental statement for the moment.

There was obvious, almost laughable shock on the young woman’s face as the entire situation computed, albeit, somewhat slowly, in her mind. Stairwell. Hair. Books. Portrait. Laugh. Threat. Another voice. Sirius Black. Ela. Sirius Black. Ela. Sirius Black. Sirius Black. Needless to say, by the time she disembarked that particularly jerky thought train, Elanora was a whole different kind of flustered than she had been before. Her lips remained parted in a faint ‘O’ shape as she continued to stare, partially in amazement, part in horror, at the man whom had chivalrously gathered her books, and continued to hold them out to her without fail. It was the concept that Sirius Black, one of the – scratch that, the – most attractive member of the student body, had just watched her shuffle and stumble and awkwardly slide down the damned stairs that caused her frustration to quickly transform into complete mortification. Honestly, Elanora had never really ‘crushed’ very much on the Gryffindor heartthrob. Yes, Sirius was handsome young man. So handsome, in fact, Ela doubted there was anything that could make him even slightly unattractive. Mud? No. Boils? Ela pictured it for a minute. No, not those either. Alas, that was beside the point – the point itself was more that Ela had never really found Sirius to be her type, much less, was she so bold as to believe she’d have a chance with his ‘type’. His type being the attractive kind, of course. Needless to say, Ela wasn’t too fortunate when it came to relationships. Or boys in general, for that matter.

The color drained from Ela’s face and quickly reappeared in a flush within a mere couple of seconds. She tried to form some sort of words to reply to Sirius’ inquiry, but found that she could muster no more than a rather strained laugh of embarrassment as a first reply. Upon realizing that he was still holding her books, a quick “Oh!” slipped off her lips. Hazel eyes which were now a honey-brown eyes remained the size of saucers as she cradled the enormous volumes of text in her own arms – mind you, with far less ease than Sirius had. He’d been holding his own books and hers, hadn’t he? How did he do that? Maybe if she didn’t have the bone density of twigs. That might’ve helped.

“Thanks,” she finally managed to get a word out after what seemed like minutes, her expression at last breaking into a quick flash of a smile. What else could she say? Ela had spoken with Sirius before, so it wasn’t like an introduction was needed. He happened to be one of the best mates of one Remus Lupin, a boy Ela happened to find herself quite fond of – and probably one of the only ones to which she was able to form coherent sentences. A small smile reappeared as she regained what little composure she could. She had to get to class – but class was the last thing on her mind, at the moment.

“I’m – somewhatpetrifiedofstairs,” she admitted her excuse in such a rush, she could only hope he caught it all. Good lord, she was such a girl. She didn’t even like Sirius in that way, and she was still a puddle at his feet. “You – er – have class? Or, do you spend the day rescuing pathetically crippled girls in stairwells?”

[/blockquote]

[• SIRIUS ORION BLACK]

By this point in Sirius life, there wasn't a reaction to his appearance that he hadn't seem. He'd had girls start babbling incoherently, girls whose faces turned as red as his Gryffindor tie, girls who have drooled, and he'd had some appear petrified and unable to say a word. On one occasion he'd even had a girl faint just because he told her that she smelled nice. All these reactions did was inflate Sirius' ego, which was pretty big to begin with.

Being so used to the silly things girls did when he suddenly appear before them, Sirius wasn't at all put off or freaked out by how Elanora was acting. In fact, he somewhat basked in the glory of it all. No matter how many times he did it, Sirius took great relish in the way girls acted around him. What may have seemed like an eternity of shock for Elanore was a great long lasting compliment to Sirius Black. It was beyond concede, and Sirius knew that, so most of the time he tried to appear as humble as possible. Except for when James was around. In the presence of his best friend, Sirius could help but rub it in James' face that Sirius was obviously the more attractive and the more favorable among girls between the two of them.

Sirius patiently held out the books for her until she finally took them from him. In the time it took her to retrieve the books, Sirius, besides enjoying the inflation of his ego, picked up on Elanora's scent. One of Sirius' favorite thing about woman was the way they smelled. Part of this was because, ever since he had been learning how to turn into a dog, he took on some dog-like traits while in human form and one of those traits was a heightened sense of smell. Another one of those traits was that he was a bit scruffy for a fifteen year old, which had gotten him into so places of adult entertainment that past summer.

Most girls in his age group had a very sweet or fruity smell, obviously due their perfume. Unfortunately, some girls didn't know when to stop when it came to the application of the perfume so whether or not it was a pleasant smell, it was far to overbearing for Sirius. Other girls did put on enough perfume and it didn't quite mask their own personal scent, which was always less than desirable. Then their were the girls that didn't choose perfumes that were appropriate for their age group. Any floral or herbal scent always reminded Sirius of the older woman in his family. They smelled like poperee and those crappy incence that muggle 'witches' burned. Elanora, didn't smell like any of these things. She didn't smell like she was wearing perfume at all, something that Sirius found extremely interesting. Did he happened to come upon a girl who was so lacking in vanity that she didn't bother to put on perfume? This didn't mean that Elanore smelled bad, quite the contrary in fact. The way Ela smelled, Sirius had no way to describe it other than 'clean'. She just smelled very clean. Not like soap or body wash, just clean. It was different and surprisingly pleasant to Sirius. It definitely made him a lot more curious about Elanora.

But, this was the girl that Remus liked. At times, Sirius did fear that his extreme good looks may get in the way of his friends finding girl friends. Sirius skills of resistance were great when it came to his friend's crushes, but the girls themselves . . . there was no guarantee on how strong their will power was. After all, who would choose James Potter, Remus Lupin, or Peter Pettigrew when Sirius Black was in the mix? So far, James' crush, Lily Evans had been immune to Sirius' charm, but that hardly mattered because she severely disliked James. Sirius didn't foresee that problem with Elanora, the extremely dislike part, anyway.

"You're quite welcome," Sirius said to Elanora's long awaited thank you. Now, what was Sirius to do in this situation? Given the facts that Remus liked his girl, but was too chicken to do anything about it, made the idea of Sirius playing match maker all too tempting. After all, he had already started on Evans for James, it simply wouldn't be fair if Sirius didn't to the same for Remus. Sirius' good graces did stretch as far as getting a date for Peter, though because Sirius, in all his charm, wit, and cunning, was no where near enough to get a girl to like Peter Pettigrew. It would take a miracle and the power of God to make that happen. But, Elanora and Remus was totally possible; easy, almost.

"Y-you are afraid of stairs?" said Sirius slowly. He was more questioning if he had heard her correctly rather than questioning the fear its self. He was trying to be nonjudgmental and forcing himself to think about the root of the issue for once. Sirius rarely tried to think past the outside of a person; he usually just judged them based on how they acted and what they did rather than try to figure out why they were like that. But to be afraid of stairs? Maybe it stemmed from a far of heights or inclines? Who knew? It seemed best to just steer away from that topic, though he knew it was going to come up in conversation with the lads later.

"As a matter of fact, I do have a class," said Sirius with a small laugh at Ela's suggestion of an alternative way to spend his days, "and I'm making my way to it slowly but surely. No need to rush after all; it's not like the class room is going anywhere. I'm fairly certain that it will still be there by the time I get there. How about you? On your way to a class? Shall I walk you to it just in case those books of yours get a little to heavy?"

There was no need to rush his little match making scheme. Like most tactical things Sirius did in life, he liked to take his time and plan them out. Though, this situation was going to require some more quick thinking that usual as Sirius' goal was to have Elanora agree to go on a date with Remus by the time they had reached her class room.

[ELANORA MELROSE RIGBY]

As much of a patron to the out-of-the-ordinary as Elanora Rigby proudly was, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief when Sirius seemed to take her particularly flustered reaction to seeing him as something that was all-too-commonplace. Thank goodness. She should have assumed he had experienced something like it before – well, not the whole, ‘awkwardly-molding-her-body-to-fit-the-banister-of-the-stairs-as-she-went-down’, part – the ‘flustered-and-disoriented-girl’ portion. How many among Hogwarts’ female population had Sirius already dazzled with his presence during his lifetime? All but a handful of Slytherins and cousins, maybe? These facts alone seemed to put Ela into more of a state of ease – granted, one of the female gender couldn’t ever be completely relaxed around someone like Sirius Black, could they? If there was someone who could, it certainly wasn’t Ela. She had enough trouble with average boys. Sirius was a few steps up from average, if not because of his good looks, because of his inflated ego, which Ela found almost just as oppressive as the enchanting smile, which seemed to be a permanent resident of the boy’s face.

Despite the way Sirius seemed to dismiss his inquiry about her stair-phobia after asking it, Ela didn’t feel she could leave it alone with the way it had made her insides recoil. Sure, she would probably still sound a bit silly, but in the very least she felt the need to defend herself with a valid point. Such things were important to one who was supposed to belong to the house of ‘wit and rationale’. Part of the girl still managed to be impressed at what seemed to be genuine interest in the matter, marking Sirius’ facial features. Was he merely a good actor, or was he actually interested in knowing something more about the peculiar Ravenclaw girl? She settled for assuming a little of both.

“No – er – well, I’m not actually afraid of the stairs themselves. I’m more afraid of them, say, starting to move with me on them, the result of which most likely being me, tumbling to my death.” Ela was impressed with herself; her statement had actually flowed rather smoothly, despite the condition of her still-slightly-jumbled nerves, and the fact that she was talking to a handsome male. That was an incredibly impressive feat in her book. Her small book. Her tiny, half-page of noted encounters with the opposite sex. She even had the gall to continue.

“I had something like that happen to me during second year, you see – well, not the death part, of course,” A brief smile traced the line of Elanora’s pale lips, accompanied by a short, punctuating laugh that was sharp yet soft at the same time, “– still, the tumbling part seems to have left a strong enough impression on its own, wouldn’t you say?” It was a valid reasoning, Ela figured. Half a grin reappeared on the young woman’s gently curved face, revealing the slightest of dimples to her cheeks. “I’m a bit of a klutz to start, unfortunately.” She managed to make eye contact in a quick glance before her eyes danced away to focus on something not quite as interesting. The books in her hand weren’t quite as unnerving, either. At his mention of escorting her to class on their account, however, her grip on them instinctively tightened. She shuffled them around a bit in her arms – the girl had a terrible habit of fidgeting.

“Well – ” She half-considered telling Sirius he really ought to try to get to class on time himself, but dismissed the idea when she took into account his statement of ‘the classroom isn’t going anywhere’. Instead, she settled for responding to his questions. “Yes - I’m on my way to class, myself. I wouldn’t make myself a target of banister-riders and those who begrudge cripples if I didn’t have somewhere I needed to rush to get to.” She shook her head slightly, before realizing that she hadn’t responded to Sirius’ offer to walk her to class. Another “Oh!” escaped her, though it was formed more of surprise and less of shock than its predecessor had been. “That—that’s very kind of you, but I think can manage, really.” She offered another polite smile to Sirius, but the look transformed into somewhat of a frown as she began to walk. For as hard as she had tried to reach her class on time, History of Magic happened every day. One-on-one encounters with Sirius Black did not. Ela felt somewhat inclined to spend as much time with him as she was able. He was a friend of Remus’, after all – wouldn’t it be rude not to get to know him at least a little when she had the chance? Plus, it looked as though Sirius had something particular on his mind, anyway. The young woman quirked a brow, sending a tentative glance the boy’s way.

“Unless, of course, your class is in this direction, too?”

[/blockquote]

[• SIRIUS ORION BLACK]

Oh dear God in heaven; this girl was perfect for Remus. This whole situation was no longer about Sirius just feeling compelled to set up Remus with Ela; this was now an obligation. If Sirius didn’t do this, it would be like slapping fate in the face with a twenty-pound catfish. IT WAS DESTINY. There were just so many things about Elanora that reminded Sirius of Remus; the fidgeting, the averting of eye contact, the being a ‘klutz’, it was all very Lupin. It was very hard to put into words, but just the vibe he was getting from this chick, felt right for Remus. Sirius was, after all, one of the few people who knew Mr. Moony very well and certainly the only one of those people capable of getting Remus a lady friend. The only problem with Elanora was that she seemed very reserved. In other words, she didn’t seem like the type of girl you would sleep with after the first date and Sirius was really pushing for Remus to get laid. Oh well, this was just going to happen in small steps. For right now, Sirius was just going to have to focus on getting Remus a date; he’d have to worry about the getting laid part later.

“Oh, so you had a bad experience, well that’s perfectly reasonable,” said Sirius. Well, at least the girl wasn’t afraid to approach the elephant in the room that was her odd way of descending stairs. Sirius had been on the right track thinking the fear had stemmed from something else, and that thing was Ela’s tumble. Now that he thought about it, there had been a few times Sirius thought he might loose his balance when the stairs decided to move while he was on them. It was just one of those things that he brushed off and didn’t think much off, like whether or not any girls in Slytherin thought he was attractive.

“I myself am afraid of centipedes; nothing should have that many legs,” Sirius shivered at the mental image of the multi-legged creature. “If one creeps out of nowhere, it feels like I have a mild heart attack and I can’t rest until it’s crushed to death beneath the underside of my Doc Martins. Ugh, just the way it moves around with all those tiny legs going about. . . And they’re bloody fast too! Within the blink of an eye, the damn thing will disappear underneath my dresser, or worse; some of the clothes that I left on the floor. . . I know they’re harmless, but, ugh, I just DON’T like them.”

Sirius wasn’t afraid to admit his fear of the otherwise harmless bug. His reaction to the thing was incontrollable and it wasn’t like he screamed like a girl; he just went on a murderous rampage until the thing was dead. Never once had anyone mocked him about this, well, besides James, but that was the only person for whom it was excusable. Most girls liked that he had a small side of vulnerability; such has his fear of centipedes. It was an extremely endearing quality and a lot of girls liked knowing that there was a guy out there who disliked a particular type of bug as much as they did.

Sirius’ mind had wandered off so far to his hatred of centipedes that he almost thought he had imagined Elanora’s reply to his walking-her-to-class offer. What was this? Was Elanora turning down an offer to be walked to class by Sirius Black? This was simply unheard of. Sirius was almost offended! Obviously he would still have to walk with her because he now had a God given obligation to play matchmaker, but since Elanora had turned him down, now he was just going to look creepy following her. Oh, the things he did for his friends! Remus better appreciate the great lengths Sirius was going to for him.

Elanora had started to walk away and Sirius was about to take his first steps towards being creepy, but what luck! Elanora, in a way, retracted her previous statement and invited Sirius to walk with her. Then a thought stuck him; Sirius’s next class was Herbology, which was not in the same direction that Ela was going. If Sirius were to go with Ela, he would no doubt be super super late for class. So late, in fact, that Professor Sprout might actually make him feed the man-eating tulip for being so late. So late, that no manner of wit would be able to get Sirius out of such a punishment. He had already decided what he was doing and that he didn’t care about being late for class, but the man eating tulip. . . That would almost be as bad as getting killed by drapery, which was, alas, Sirius’ only weakness.


“Oh yeah, my class is totally this way,” he said. The man-eating tulip was a pussy, Sirius could totally take him.

Sirius began to walk along side Elanora, contemplating his next move. He didn’t fancy avoiding the subject much longer as he did hate dragging things out. He also didn’t want to come off pushy or too abrupt. Luckily, Sirius was a master of cool so transitioning the topic of the conversation to the Halloween dance was going to be seamless.

“You know Elanora, at least your fear of stairs is not something someone can spontaneously scare you with, you know. It’s not as if someone can sneak up behind you dressed as a flight of stairs and I simply can’t imagine a boggart transforming into one either. Last Halloween, James Potter dressed up as a giant centipede and chanced me all around our dormitory. I nearly killed him, but I guess it had to be funny. . . Oh! Speaking of which, did you hear that they’re going to be putting on a Halloween dance this year?” Ok, so the story about the centipede costume was a lie, but it was a good transition.

[ELANORA MELROSE RIGBY]

There was no reason not to believe Sirius when he said that his class was in the same direction – except for the fact that, once she thought about it, Elanora wasn’t sure that there were any other classes on the floor that Sirius would actually be taking. Was that really any of her business, though? Ela didn’t think so. Alas, she was curious by nature, and the whole situation made part of her wonder just what he was still doing walking next to her. If Sirius was planning on skipping his class, didn’t he have a better place to be? Not that Ela minded the company - it was more entertaining to listen and watch as Sirius’ facial expressions changed during the conversation than it would have been to trail the floor with her eyes.

Despite her efforts, Elanora couldn’t keep a small grin from forming on her face once Sirius began his talk of centipedes. She had the decency to return Sirius’ understanding demeanor, however, and after a moment she sobered her expression to a more sympathetic curve of the lips. Elanora still found herself mildly amused by the idea of a young man with Sirius’ nerve and record of devilry having such a simple, admittedly silly fear to his name. She thought no less of him for it, of course. Elanora had always wondered just what it was that made vulnerability so endearing a quality when it was found belonging to one of the male gender; perhaps, she thought, it was merely the fact that one felt more valued when another – particularly, a young man of Sirius’ reputation – was so completely unguarded as to trust one with the knowledge of a weakness, even one so trivial. Maybe it was merely the fact that it proved there was a flaw, however slight, hidden behind the perfection of an attractive man’s face, dropping him down a peg from the stature of a god at least to that of a minor deity. But, then, how was it that this vulnerability raised them up in the eyes of women? It made them seem more wonderful, and right after being dropped down a peg, they went back up two. To where, though? What was above being god-like? The universe? But, didn’t gods create the universe? Had Ela really just rationalized the idea of Sirius Black creating the universe?
Next thought, please.

As Sirius went on, Ela’s overactive imagination put an especially vivid picture into her mind of the boy utterly smiting, smashing and crushing a tiny, helpless centipede. Ela, being the over-sensitive wimp she was, had to wince slightly at the mental image despite herself. She couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor creatures whose lives ended beneath a pile of Sirius’ dirty laundry – was there anyone who would cherish a death like that? – however, the expression was quickly replaced by a bemused but careful grin. “If that’s your take on centipedes, I can’t imagine how you feel about millipedes.” Ela sincerely hoped that the existence of millipedes wasn’t news to the poor young man who seemed to have such a terrible fright of creatures with considerably more legs than he; she would feel terrible if she added something else to fear to his list, in particular. Alas, the dysfunctional nature of the filter that lay between her brain and her mouth made Ela one of bad news’ prime carriers. She was relieved, however, to see Sirius was far more interested in continuing whatever train of thought he had than in compounding upon her small comment.

Ela wasn’t the sort of girl to be easily fooled. It took more than a good liar – it took the kind that lied like a spider, weaving threads of deceit so skillfully fashioned that truth and fiction were intertwined seamlessly in the same intricate web - to truly and completely beguile her. Sirius must have been a metaphorical spider; it was either that, or that Ela was simply too caught up in the situation itself to notice that the conversation thread which connected centipede and ball was thoroughly fabricated. The Halloween story pulled a musical laugh from Elanora’s lips as a vision of the scene played in her mind’s eye – the laughter stopped quite abruptly, however, and was replaced with a curious expression of raised eyebrows when she heard the end of Sirius’ question. The dance? Why was he asking about that?

“The Halloween dance? Oh - yes – I heard about it. It sounds like it could be fun. Almost everyone I know is planning on going, even though they just announced it recently – you are too, I’m sure?” Ela gave a faint smile, which, while not entirely disinterested, made it obvious she didn't have much stored emotionally in the subject. She had been thinking of going - if only with friends. Why Sirius would mention it, however, was beyond her. Was there a friend of hers he was interested in taking? Perhaps this was just more pleasant conversation. There were, maybe, thirty seconds left before the bell for class would ring. Thankfully, the door to History of Magic was in sight. But - how much did Ela really want to go to class, now? She certainly wouldn't be moving before she let Sirius say everything he had on his mind. It was far too interesting an encounter to pass up a single sentence offered. She wondered for a moment - if she tousled her hair, could she get away with the late-excuse of falling down the stairs?

[/blockquote]

[• SIRIUS ORION BLACK]

Sirius thought that Elanora’s response to his fear was going well, then she mentioned millipedes. It was never good enough for him to just admit to being afraid of one thing was it? Once he admitted being afraid of one thing, that wasn’t him opening the flood gates and letting all of his fears out for everyone to see. No, it was just him trying to show a bit of humility, but SOME PEOPLE just had to push it! But, he couldn’t get annoyed with Ela, because he needed her to go to the Halloween dance with Remus and it simply wouldn't do for Sirius to loose his cool. Besides, Ela was probably just innocently inquiring as to how Sirius felt about millipedes.

“Luckily, I have never had the misfortune of encountering a millipede,” said Sirius seriously, shivering at the very thought, “and I guess that’s lucky for the millipede as well.” Yes, Sirius knew of the existence of this even more devious creepy crawler and he tried not to think about them. The only time Sirius had ever seen a millipede was in pictures in books. They were bigger than centipedes; almost like small snakes with thousands of legs, you know pretty much the most horrifying thing you’d ever seen in your life. Sirius couldn’t even imagine what type of reaction he would have if he saw one in real life. A heart attack maybe? And not the type of mock ‘heart attack’ he had when he saw a centipede; a real ‘I may or may not be experiencing heart failure’ type heart attack. The kind of heart attack that could actually that could kill Sirius. It was odd that other bugs, like spiders and cockroaches, didn’t bother Sirius. For some reason, just those ones with many legs gave him the creeps. It had to be the way they moved with all the legs going at once and the thought of what it might feel like to have one of them crawling on him will all those little legs.

It would seem Sirius had shifted the conversation in his favor without arousing suspicion from Ela. As if had a doubt! Sirius was the champion of lying and manipulation. How else could he have avoided expulsion after half the stunts he’d pulled? Now Sirius just had to come up with a modest way of asking Ela to go to the dance with Remus. He’d never asked out someone on behalf of another before, but how are could it be? He’d asked out plenty of girls for himself, so it was a simple matter of replacing the words ‘me’ or ‘I’ with ‘Remus Lupin’. The only way this could go wrong would be if Elanora wasn’t interested in Remus, in which case, Sirius could just pretend he never asked and Remus would never have to face the rejection first hand! It was really a win-win situation.

“Oh yeah, I will definitely be there,” said Sirius earnestly, “Halloween is my favorite holiday; there’s awesome costumes and more than enough chances to cause mischief!” Sirius failed to mention that he loved some of the, er, more sensual costumes some of the older female students wore. “My friends and I all have started looking for dates, the trouble is some of them. . . er, well you see, some of them aren’t so brave when it comes to women. It’s silly really since some of them are perfectly capable of getting dates, buuuuuut. . . . “

Oh, what the Hell, how was he supposed to do this without sounding like he was Remus’ pimp? Sirius suddenly stopped walking and motioned for Ela to do the same. “Listen, I don’t want to beat around the bush,” said Sirius, suddenly becoming business like, “but it’s recently come to my attention that Remus Lupin has a bit of a crush on you! Ooooo, aren’t you lucky! Now, like I’ve said; he’s not so good when it come to talking to girls, so I feel the need to intervene and help out. Now, I know this feels kinda sudden and staged, but how do you feel about going to the dance with Remus?”

There, he’d said it. It wasn’t his smoothest proposition, but it was out there! For his first time asking someone out on some else’s behalf, he didn’t think he’d done half bad! He’d make a pretty good pimp if it ever came to that, except without the cheap suits and the slapping hookers bit. Well, now to wait for Ela response, but he was pretty sure he had sold it!

[ELANORA MELROSE RIGBY]

To say that Elanora was merely shocked by what Sirius had to say would have easily been the understatement of the millennia. That’s a thousand years, in case you didn’t know. Yes, a thousand years of shocks both mild and severe couldn’t touch the young woman where she stood at a dead stop alongside Sirius Black, an expression almost completely void of any sort of reaction plastered to her unresponsive, albeit amiable face. Normally, it didn’t take Ela very long to react to things. Sure, if her thoughts strayed off on a particularly distracted tangent, it might take her a moment or two to snap back to reality. But never had their been such a blatant, drawn-out display of the gears turning within Elanora’s mind like this. She was obviously completely blind-sighted by Sirius’ statement – question? – whatever it was. There was more to it than that, however, for, in all of Elanora’s impressive fifteen years of life, she could count on one hand the amount of times she had ever been asked by a boy – or, by a boy for another boy – to do anything akin to a date. She could count on that same hand the number of times she had rejected these advances – though, perhaps not all her ‘rejections’ had been intentional. To no one’s surprise, she held up the same amount of fingers both in counting the encounters and their corresponding rejections – not that she would ever disclose just how many of each there had been. No more than five, of course. Or, maybe three, if one excludes the pinky and the thumb. Neither of them contain the word ‘finger’ in their titles, after all. But, that’s so completely beside the point, it’s hardly visible in the peripherals.
Moving on.

Unlike many situations for which she already had a natural, easy-coming response and reaction, Elanora Rigby had no skills to be named when it came to boys. Relationships. Dating. Dances. Even with how blunt Sirius had been when he finally came to the question, Elanora lacked the basic savvy to be prepared with an immediate response – even if that first response was nothing more than simple contemplation. Ela couldn’t even manage that. Instead, she looked completely dumbfounded. Was she really so pathetically hopeless? Don’t answer that question.

For Ela, this was one of the most delicate subjects to approach. Therefore, at the risk of making herself seem a fool and otherwise foiling the simplicity of the situation, the young woman did what a Ravenclaw did best: she analyzed every single word of Sirius’ statement, one-by-one, slowly piecing them together into phrases, then sentences, so that there was no possible way that what Sirius had said could possibly have been misconstrued into something it wasn’t. She liked to be completely positive about important things before she dared do anything to affect them. The moment the name ‘Remus ‘ was thrown into the mix, this ‘thing’ reached a whole new level of significance.

That was where she got caught up. That name - Remus. It was Remus Lupin that Sirius was supposedly here on behalf of, asking Ela to a ball despite the fact that the absent boy hadn’t said one word about it to her before. But maybe, the actual dance part was feasible. Remus was busy; maybe he didn’t have time to mention it in passing. And, friends went to dances with friends anyway, didn’t they? That made enough sense. But Sirius didn’t stop with the dance – he went on to mention the ‘c’ word.

Crush, that is.

Perhaps a comparison was in order. Something like, ‘Remus is to having a crush on Ela, as Sirius is to sparing the life of a centipede.’ Yes, that seemed to sum up Elanora’s thoughts on the matter quite well. The way Sirius had put it, it all just seemed too…too what? Too unexpected? Too unlikely? And yet, despite Ela’s disbelief, there was something in the way Sirius had said it that made her sure he wasn’t lying. It was uncomfortable how powerful and sure this realization was in her mind; Elanora might have been a bit stung by the fact that she was completely none-the-wiser, but for now she found herself simply struck. Where were the signs? The signals? Had she simply been completely oblivious to them? Or, was Remus an expert at concealing such things? Maybe Sirius was simply lying after all, in order to get Elanora to agree to go to the dance. That prospect seemed the most likely, and yet despite herself, some part of Ela’s gut instinct was saying the opposite.

“Ah—“ When at last Elanora opened her mouth to speak, the most that came out was a soft release of breath. Remus had Sirius to speak for him – how was it fair that Elanora, a young woman obviously handicapped in more ways than Hogwarts provided assistance for, had no one but herself to speak for her? She certainly wasn’t doing a very good job at speaking on her own behalf thus far, considering the most she could do was let out half the breath she had sharply inhaled approximately two minutes before. Wasn’t there someone who could stand in, now? A stunt double, mayhaps? This was certainly a stunt worthy of one.

Remus was a rare occurrence in Elanora’s life. He was one of her only close friends of the male gender, one of the only boys around which she wasn’t complete putty. It hadn’t always been that way, mind you – there was a brief, familiar flutter in Elanora’s chest as the young woman recalled her third year, during which Remus was her year-long partner for a class whose content she hardly remembered. Ela’s gaze, which had been fixated upon something beyond Sirius for the many moments in which she had seemingly gone blank, snapped back suddenly to catch upon Sirius’ own intent look. “W-well-“ Ela managed to stammer out the beginnings of what she hoped would be a coherent sentence as the tranquilizer of a question with which she had been hit slowly began to wear off. There was something very different about this particular invitation when compared to its predecessors. This wasn’t just anyone asking – it was Remus Lupin. Well, actually, it was Sirius Black, but that was a technicality. Remus and Ela were good friends; did the rubbish Sirius had mentioned about a crush really matter?

“Staged or not – Remus knows about this, right?” Ela tried to return Sirius’ straight-forwardness with some of her own. “As long as he’s – as long as he’s actually interested – are you sure he won’t be asking someone else? – no, I’d – I’d love to go with him. I’m sure we’d have a grand time. As long as he wants to, also.” For one, simple moment, Elanora allowed herself the luxury of believing that Sirius was not a pathological liar. A light rose to Ela’s eyes as the smile resurfaced on her lips.

“If you see him, let him know that – would you?”

[/blockquote]

[• SIRIUS ORION BLACK]

When Sirius asked girls on dates (well, he wouldn’t consider what he did as ‘dates’) or dances, each girl generally reacted the same way. First, there would be the moment of shocked silence that Sirius could only assume was the time when the girl was contemplating whether or not she was dreaming. Once or twice, in fact, Sirius had caught a girl discretely pinching herself on the side just to make sure that she was awake. After the dazed silence passed, next he girl would become flustered and giddy; her checks would turn bright red, she wouldn’t be able to look at Sirius in the eye, and she wouldn’t be able to stop smiling. This had to be Sirius’ favorite stage of ‘post-ask-out syndrome’, as Sirius liked to call it. It was by far the most flattering stage; what guy didn’t take satisfaction out of making a girl blush? But, this was soon followed by the ‘fish out of water’ stage. Why did Sirius call it this? Because, this was the stage where the girl would keep opening and closing her mouth, as if trying to say something, but the words won’t come out, much like a fish out of water gasping for breath. The girls didn’t flop about like a caught fish on the deck of a boat would, though. That would just be alarming and it would be the point where Sirius would have to retract his dance or date invitation. The final stage was the breathless acceptance of the proposal. The girl would say ‘yes’ in a dreamy manner and look like she was positively about to melt. After that, the girl wouldn’t be able to say much else; she would just continue to smile and nod as if silently saying ‘yes’ over and over again. This is the point where Sirius would tell her the time and day they would meet, then he would be on his merry way. Sirius could count on this whole chain reaction of events like clockwork.

Asking out a girl on someone else’s behalf was. . . a little different. The dazed and speechless staged lasted a lot longer than Sirius was used to. He didn’t know if this was because he had asked for Remus, or because of the type of person Elanora was, or both. Sirius thought he had a great understanding of the workings of the minds of women, but this was one of the first times he didn’t quite know what was going on inside there. Was Ela contemplating whether or not this was a dream or was she considering whether or not Sirius was playing some type of cruel joke on her? He certainly never would do the latter; he took no satisfaction out of play such pranks on girls, unless you counted Snape.

Maybe Elanora was simply considering the proposition of going to the dance with Remus. She had to like him; Sirius had seen their interactions in the classroom and he could tell that there was a little more than friendship between them. What the two did, Sirius considered to be the awkward, almost nerdy version of flirting. Ela HAD to feel the same way about Remus as he felt about her. Could Elanora be thinking that Sirius was lying about how Remus felt? How could Sirius and Remus possibly benefit from that? Yes, Sirius was desperate to at least get Remus out on a date, even if it was just having a date to a school dance, but Sirius would never stoop to lying about Remus’ feelings. He would however, stoop to lying about whether or not Remus know what he was up to. It was really better that way; if Remus knew, he wouldn’t let Sirius do it, there would be a big argument, and Remus would end up dateless to the dance. What type of friend would Sirius be if he let that happen?

Just when Sirius thought he was going to get some type of response out of the Ravenclaw, she went in to the ‘fish out of water’ stage. This was somewhat expected, but still, it occurred in an unusual way. Just like before, Ela seemed more contemplative that dazed. Sirius could tell that Ela was a very calculating person, which was very characteristic for a Ravenclaw, of course. Most girls in this kind of situation didn’t look like they were thinking about much of anything beyond how charming Sirius’ smile was. But with Ela, the gears were turning and it was as if her mind was thinking about every pro and con of the situation and every possible reason for why it was happening. If Sirius could hear Elanora’s brain working, he imagined it would sound like a hive of angry bees buzzing around the inside of the girl’s skull. (Bees were another bug that Sirius wasn’t afraid of.) Sirius was actually starting to get a little frustrated; how could something like this require so much thought? Didn’t girls like being asked out? Maybe Elanora just wasn’t used to being asked to dances. . . That was the only reason Sirius could think of for her extremely delayed response. Still, Sirius kept a polite look on his face and faked patients while he waited for Elanora’s answer.

Finally, the girl spoke and, in a number of words, it seemed like a ‘yes’. SUCCESS!! Sirius was a total master of match making, a genius almost! “Of course Remus knows,” said Sirius with gentle earnest, “I mentioned asking for him a few days ago and, while he seemed rather awkward about it as he is with most things, he agreed that it would be the best coarse of action. And don’t even worry about him asking someone else; you’re the one and only one he wants to go to this dance with. I wouldn’t be asking you if I wasn’t sure of that!”

At long last, he got a smile out of the girl, which Sirius returned with his most charming of grins. “Oh, I’ll be sure to let him know, in fact, he’s in my next class, which I should probably be getting to. . heh. Well, Elanora,” Sirius took the girls hand and shook it very business like, “it was a pleasure talking to you, but I think we should both be getting to class now. I bid you, farewell.” With that, Sirius gave Remus’ date a small bow and dashed off in the opposite direction to get to herbology.

Sirius couldn’t wait to tell Remus that he now had a date to the dance. How would dear old Moony react? With groveling gratitude? Probably! Sirius could picture it now;

Oh thank you! Thank you, Sirius! Remus would say, If it weren’t for you, I would have no date for the dance and would have to show up alone like a total lame ass! Sirius, you are the coolest, most awesome guy ever and my very very best friend! No one could ever match your level of cool, not James, not me, certainly not Wormtail, not anyone ever! In fact, I’m going to make fliers to hand out to everyone in school saying how awesome you are and why everyone should love you, not that they don’t already, but they’ll love you even more! I think your awesome has even cured me of my lycanthropy! Thanks to you, I shall never have to dread the full moon ever again!

Ok, maybe that last part was going a bit far, but who’s to say that you couldn’t cure lycanthropy with a hefty dose of awesome?

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