When We First Met

Sirius was draped over the chair in the common room, his feet dangling over the edge as he shot sparks off in the air with his wand, counting how many he could have up in the air before they started to fall to the ground again. When they hit the ground, the chair or a part of his body, they disappeared in a tiny cloud of smoke. It wasn't much, but it was entertaining enough.

"One, two, three, four, five, si- crap!" Sirius cursed, having almost broken his record by having six of the sparks in the air at the same time. Though because he moved his leg, the first thing disappeared. Suddenly the game he had been playing wasn't very fun anymore.

"I give up!" he yelled out, to no one in particular, tossed his wand to the other side of the common room and let his head dangle over the side of the chair.

Mary had entered the common room briefly to dump her stuff in her dormitory before she was going to go exploring. She wanted to know exactly what was what in this castle, and more than anything she wanted to know who was who.

Pulling a jumper over her head as she made her way back to the common room, she paused when she heard someone call out. Turning around on one heel, she looked to see a boy draped in an armchair, seemingly talking to himself. Mary recognised him from the Sorting and a few of her lessons, and grinned. "You talking to me? Or to your imaginary friends? To whom I say hello."

Sirius' head turned to the side in the chair when he heard a voice, he saw her upside down, and on his face formed a grin. He didn't move, his hand still dangling dangerously over the edge, though he wasn't afraid of falling. And even if he did, it wouldn't hurt that much. He'd been through worse pains.

"Oh yeah, I'd like to introduce you to Evan, Josphine and Gerald, they say hello as well," he said sarcastically, rolling his eyes at the blond girl in front of him. He was quite certain she was a first year like him, but he had no idea what her name was. He wasn't that good with names, faces were more his thing.

"It was more that I decided to inform everyone who might like to listen that I was giving up playing this game, as I do not see the purpose it has," he informed her, leaving out the fact he had enjoyed playing the purposeless game for nearly half an hour, and hadn't given up until it decided not to work with him anymore.

"Hi, Evan, Josephine and Gerald," Mary said, giving a small wave in the general direction of the empty seats. "Josephine, you're looking lovely. What's that? Oh, Gerald, thank you! What this old thing?" She forced her face straight and turned to raise her eyebrows at the boy.

"You can't just give up! I'm sure it had a purpose," Mary said, smiling, and moving round to sit in the chair. "Come on. Teach me how to play. What do I do?" She glanced over at him before arranging herself in a similar position and turning her head. "This had better be fun."

Sirius snorted at the girl, but he had to admit that she was at least a bit funny. Before he could say, or do, anything else, she had draped herself over his chair next to him, her head also dangling over the edge of it.

"Wait," he told her, making a strange movement so he rolled of the chair and quickly retrieved his wand from where he had thrown it. He supposed he was glad that it hadn't actually hit someone in the face. Though that would have been entertaining. He walked back towards the chair and resat himself in the same position as before, twirling his wand in his hand.

"You have to channel energy through your wand. My uncle taught me this, it's perfectly harmless and not powerful at all, but wonderful when you want to show someone where you are exactly, but then you'd need more energy," he told her, deciding that he sounded extremely clever when he was talking like this.

"Look, like this," Sirius continued, before he concentrated and then bright blue sparks erupted from his wand. One, two, three, four, five, si- "Damnit!" he cursed again, because when the sixth spark went off, the first one hit the back of the couch. He realized he still hadn't actually explained what he was doing. "You have to try to levitate as much of them as possible, but every time I nearly have six, I mess up," he told her, trying very hard not to pout.

Mary watched him roll off of the sofa and smirked. "Come on, get organised, I wanna play the game!" she told him enthusiastically, watching as he rolled back on and listening to him very intently.

His explanation seemed a bit flowery and garbled, but she listened anyway, nodding intently. "Okay, so like this?" She pulled out her wand and held it up. At first, nothing happened, but when she concentrated, a small spark popped out of the end. "One," she said, nodding to it, before screwing up her face and continuing. "Two, three, four, five, six, seven, ei- seven!" She cheered and clapped her hands together. "Victory is mine!"

Sitting up straight, she grinned widely at the boy. "That was fun. I think we should play that again. To whom am I claiming victory off of?"

Sirius watched, slightly nervously, as the still unknown girl played his game. He heard her count and the second she got past six herself, Sirius could feel himself getting angry. She was not supposed to win this, he had been practicing on it for half an hour, how was she doing it better than him on her first try! Infuriated, that's what he was right now. Infuriated with the girls skill to do it better than him.

He sat up straight as well, but instead of grinning back, Sirius looked grumpy and once again threw his wand into the distance in a fit of rage. Because he was this angry, he missed the fact that this time, his wand did not land on the ground, and it even caused for someone to yelp. He huffed and crossed his arms over his chest.

"I think you just cheated," he told her.

Marlene yawned as she walked down the stairs, she had decided to take a nap, a short one after her last class. This whole school-thing was really tiring her out.

She had barely reached the last step when something greeted her face, a hard thing.

Yelping, the blonde jumped backwards and tumbled over the stairs, she reached out, barely managing a hold of the stair handle and steadied herself.

Marlene rubbed the sore spot on her forehead before she bent down to grab what had been thrown at her, holding up a wand she walked into the common room, glowering. "Who owns this? Because I really want to break it, or them." she really wasn't a morning person, even though, technically, it wasn't morning anymore.

"I think I'm just more magical than you," Mary replied, grinning as she kicked her legs back and forth, when she heard a disgruntled voice from above them. Sitting up, she beamed as she recognised the other blonde girl.

"Marlene!" she greeted cheerfully. "It's his wand. I don't know what his name is. All I know is he's a bit of a sore loser." She grinned at the boy to let him know she was joking and leant back in the chair. "You should join in. Have an all round girl victory."

Marlene had taken a moment to recognize that it was Mary infront of her and not a stranger. "Mare." she greeted, still a bit cooly, looking at the boy when Mary greeted him as the person that owned the wand.

"What are you playing?" she asked, raising her eyebrows as she walked towards Mary, still holding the dark haired's boys wand. She sat down slowly and played with it between her fingers. "It's a nicely shaped wand, you wont miss it if I keep it will you, sore loser boy?"

"You're not!" Sirius said with a huff, arms still crossed over his chest. Merlin, he hated losing. Especially losing games he thought of himself. Usually he just made the rules so it was impossible for him to lose. Then before he could whine some more, another girl joined them. Sirius soon came to learn that she had taken a hit in the face by his wand.

He also came to learn that her name was Marlene and that the girl he had been playing his game with was named Mare, apparently. "I'm Sirius Black," he introduced himself, eyeing his wand in Marlene's hand. She was going to give it back to him, it was his wand.

"I can't tell you what we were playing if you don't give me my wand back,-" Sirius tried to come up with a nickname for her that was equally humiliating as the one she'd used for him, he finally settled with something that would annoy her more than humiliate; "Blondie."

Marlene's mouth narrowed into a thin line at the nickname. Had her really called her 'Blondie'? She'd have to punish him for that nickname, that was for sure.

She narrowed her eyes slightly and opened her mouth. "It's long," the blonde noted, forcing her self to sound more interested than annoyed. She held the wand infront of her face and traced a finger over the wood. "Mine's only eleven inches, it could be handy having two wands." she grinned to herself. "I'm sure Mary can show me the game, Siri-Actually, I think I'll stick with Sore Loser Boy."

The unamused look on Marlene's face made Sirius quite happy.

Sirius looked with a scowl on his face as Marlene trailed her fingers over his wand. He tried to decide how was the best way to get it back. Because he was going to get it back. "Mary can't show you the game because I won't allow her. It's my game," Sirius said stubbornly, even though he wouldn't be able to stop Mary unless he took her wand away. He contemplated and then made up his mind.

"Then I'll show you just how much of a sore loser boy I am," he said with a grin, before throwing himself at her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her with him to the ground. His fingers starting moving quickly over her sides, tickling her in all the places he knew were sensitive for tickling. Having a little brother meant he was skilled at this. "I'm not stopping until you give it back!"

Mary couldn't help but laugh from where she lay in her chair. She had a philosophy that everything was funnier when you were lying down, but it was entertaining watching Marlene torment the boy, Sirius. "It is a nice looking wand, isn't it?" she said, grinning. "Maybe we could snap it in half and share it, Lene."

And then the boy had tackled Marlene and began to tickle her, and Mary sat bolt upright, laughing louder, grabbing the pillow behind her and smacking Sirius with it. "Oi!" she said, jumping on him to try and pull him off, laughing madly, "No attacking women, fiend!"

Marlene frowned at Sirius, holding his wand away from his reach and laughed when Mary suggested they snapped it in two, but before she could respond, the boy was talking and then she was on the floor.

Marlene wriggled around, trying to get away from the feeling, it wasn't pain, but something so much worse. Screaming and wriggling about the blonde tried to grab hold onto the boy's arm, while still holding his wand as far away as she could.

"GET OFF! MARY GET HIM OFF!" she screeched, voice high pitched from the 'pain' in her stomach because of all the laughing. "GEROFF!" her legs kicked up from the floor and into the air, hoping that she'd somehow manage to kick him, but managed to kick Mary instead.

Mary tried to pull him off again when Marlene accidentally kicked her,tripping and landing on top of them both, cackling as she attempted to rip the boy from her friend's body.

Rolling off of them and sitting up, she exhaled, blowing hair from her face, and turned to look at them. "Well, that was fun," she said as casually as she could, before laughing.