Silly Looks

On the first day of term, old Mr. Bennett once again drove Rose to King's Cross Station.

On the platforms in early January, people preparing to leave at the end of the Christmas holidays were everywhere. They said reluctant goodbyes to their families and friends before boarding long-distance trains.

Mia held Rose's hand and kept reminding her to eat on time and be sure to stay warm, just like the mother in her distant memories. Then they hugged goodbye.

Rose pulled her trunk along, pretending to head for platform nine in front of them. Only after they had left did she return to the stone wall.

There were far fewer students on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters than at the start of term after the summer holidays, and Rose found plenty of empty compartments without much trouble. She curled up in a seat and gazed absentmindedly out the window at the students saying goodbye to their families, one after another.

"There you are at last!" Lily slid the compartment door open and climbed in, her cheeks rosy. She had clearly enjoyed her holiday. "My whole family loved the biscuits you sent. Mum even asked me to see if you could tell her how to make them—and I loved your gift too!"

"It didn't cost much," Rose said, embarrassed. She had given Lily a music box carved with a lily pattern. She had fallen in love with it at first sight in the newspaper.

"It was very, very beautiful!" Lily said earnestly. "And a gift's value doesn't lie in how much it cost, you little silly."

The train slowly pulled away. Rose showed Lily the photograph, and the two girls put their heads together, huddling close and whispering.

Rose told Lily old Mr. Bennett's story, bringing tears to her eyes. Both of them were moved by the couple's heroic love story.

"Thomas took this picture of me with a Muggle camera, so it doesn't move." Rose pointed to the snowman beside her. "We built this together, and I even gave it my scarf!"

Lily listened to the happiness Rose couldn't hide in her voice and watched her talk, her eyes full of smiles, about the ginger biscuits she had made with Mia. Unable to hold back any longer, Lily threw her arms around Rose's neck and hugged her tight.

"It's wonderful-Rose, darling, I'm really so happy!" Lily choked out against her neck. "They're such a wonderful family!"

So seeing your best friend happy really can bring you to tears, Rose thought.

She hugged Lily back even harder.

"Excuse me-" An untimely voice rang out as James Potter poked his head through the gap in the compartment door he had slid open.

A flame of anger flared up inside Lily. She raised her head and glared at him.

"E-Evans!" James was so struck by her green eyes brimming with tears that he stammered, momentarily unable to speak. But his eyes soon widened visibly, and the flames in them seemed ready to burst out. "Who-did someone bully you!?"

He yanked the door open and stood squarely in the middle of the doorway, hands on his hips. Like a mother hen protecting her chicks, he looked angrily up and down the corridor, eyeing every passing student with suspicion.

"Potter—what is wrong with your brain?" Lily could no longer stand the silly sight of Potter. Her almond-shaped eyes opened wide and round as she stood, raised a leg, and kicked him hard in the backside.

"Ow!" Potter stumbled forward a few steps, but his skill as an excellent Chaser quickly helped him regain his balance. He turned around, looking deeply aggrieved as he struggled to suppress his anger. "I just wanted to get revenge for you, Evans. How could you do this to me?"

"What happened?" Sirius poked his head out of the next compartment and looked at his best friend in confusion. "Isn't Rose in there?"

Peter and Remus came out into the corridor too. They had all been sitting in the next compartment.

"She and Evans were clinging to each other and crying their eyes out!" James said sarcastically. He looked furious as well and walked straight back to the compartment.

"What's wrong?" Sirius slid the door open, came in, and sat down opposite Rose. She looked much as she usually did, except that the corners of her eyes were a little red.

"I was telling Lily about my holiday," Rose said. "James came in and interrupted us, and he even tried to threaten every student who walked past."

"That's just how silly he is." Sirius didn't hesitate to use cutting words to describe his best friend. "Whenever he sees—he always suddenly acts like he's lost his brain." He shot Lily a discreet glance as he teased.

Lily leaned back in her seat with her lips pressed together, her face a little red. It was hard to tell whether she was angry or whether it was for some other reason.

"He doesn't have one of those normally, either," Rose retorted with a shrug.

"You're right," Sirius agreed quickly. "What are you looking at? What's this?" He picked up the photograph on the table and looked down at it. "Why aren't you moving? Who trapped you in there?"

Rose and Lily exchanged a look and burst out laughing.

"It's a Muggle photograph. Muggle photographs don't move," Rose explained with a laugh. The things she had always known were considered abnormal in the magical world. "Mr. Bennett took it for me. Doesn't it look nice?"

Sirius looked down at the photograph. The girl in it seemed to him to be smiling even more brightly than she would in a moving magical photograph, and he nodded without thinking. Then he suddenly looked up and met Evans's teasing green eyes.

"By the way, I meant to ask whether you succeeded," he asked, his expression unchanged.

Rose shook her head dejectedly. "I accidentally swallowed it again."

"James and Peter failed too." He paused, then lifted his chin slightly and said proudly, "But I succeeded, on the day after Christmas. There was a full moon that day."

Rose's eyes went wide, and she stared at him in shock and excitement.

"I put it at the very bottom of my trunk. Once we get to the castle-" He glanced quickly at Lily, then leaned close to Rose and whispered discreetly in her ear, "I'll show you when we get to school."

Sirius seemed to have grown quite a bit taller. His broad shoulders blocked her entire view, and a few strands of his hair brushed lightly against Rose's cheek.

It tickled a little.

Rose nodded, then realized he couldn't see the movement from where he was and quietly said, "Okay."

Sirius reached out and patted her on the head, slipped his right hand into his pocket, and left the compartment looking cheerful.

A moment later, James's boisterous voice came from the next compartment. "Mate-why are your ears so red?" A howl followed, along with the sounds of a scuffle.

Rose realized Lily was still sitting beside her and turned sharply to look at her, a sense of shame rising in her heart.

"I, Sirius and I-" Rose stammered, trying to explain. "He must be like that with everyone, right? We're just good friends!"

Lily shook her head and gave her a meaningful look. "Of course not—I bet Black can't even name more than half the girls in our year."

"Because—it must be because they're always avoiding him, and he's too busy. He's always busy serving detention with James and the others, sneaking out at night-" Rose racked her brain, trying desperately to find suitable excuses for him.

Lily burst out laughing. "Black is considered very handsome in the whole school," she teased. "Several girls have made it clear they were interested in him ever since second year."

Rose's mouth fell wide open. She knew that Sirius Black in the original story really was very charming, and that Remus had even described him as "always getting the women," but she seemed never to have connected that handsome, elegant man with the Sirius before her.

In her eyes, he was just the big boy who had helped her look for the Diadem, who always argued and bickered with her but would accompany her to the Hospital Wing when she felt unwell.

Looking at the silly expression on Rose's face, Lily grew serious and sighed. "Don't fall too deeply, Rose. His family-" Lily shook her head. Even a Muggle-born wizard like her knew of the Black family clan. Although Black was the first Gryffindor in his family, she didn't want her best friend to suffer the slightest hurt.

Rose nodded blankly, but in her heart she knew Sirius would leave the Black family sooner or later and devote himself to true justice.

She turned to look out the window, but in her mind she pictured a huge, skeletal black dog paddling desperately through the freezing seawater, struggling to swim across the North Sea, then hiding here and there in the forest and living on rats.

Gradually, the image of the huge black dog began to overlap with that of the young Sirius.

Rose rested her head against the window, and a large tear slid from the corner of her eye.