Written For: (Love in Motion: Cross Gen: Minerva/Sirius) (Char App: (Word) Rivalry) (Disney: Jasmin - Write about a pure blood who wants to marry for love, not duty.) (Glen Bateman: (character) Remus Lupin, (word) mentor, (emotion) curiosity, (trait) wise,) (Showtime: 19. (word) Wicked) (Buttons: C3: Minerva McGonagall) (Seeley Booth: (AU) War, (dialogue) "There's more than one kind of family.", (character) Sirius Black) (Liza's Loves 4. Salty Dog - Write about Sirius Black) (Insane House - Word - Pyrrhic (after fool's gold)) (365. 100. Dialogue - "In a room full of art, I'd still stare at you.") (Scavenger Hunt: Write about an animagus.) (Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (setting) boarding school; (profession) Teacher or governess; Write about a proposal) (Writing month: 743 words)

She never meant for this to happen.

It's just that he's charming, and he genuinely likes her. His smile is bright and kind.

In the middle of a war, maybe it's a bit of a pyrrhic victory, but she counts it as a victory nonetheless.

It starts when he's seventeen.

Well, no.

The flirting starts before that.

She's supposed to be his mentor, but it's hard when he walks into a room for detention and starts the conversation with, "In a room full of art, I'd still stare at you."

But it doesn't mean anything. He flirts with anything that moves.

It doesn't mean anything until he's seventeen and he comes to her without any jokes, without any mischief sparkling in those grey eyes, and he says, "I've got a proposal for you."

She tells him to take a seat.

"As I'm sure you are aware, I have just turned 17." He pauses dramatically, and so she nods. "As such," he continues with a dramatic hand flourish, because while he's serious, he's still Sirius, "I have reached the age of majority."

"That's true," she says. She's still waiting for him to get to the point.

"And while I have long since left the weirdly oversized thumb of my parents' control, because they're insane and they hate all of my friends and they wanted me to marry Ella Nott and I did not want to do that… What was I saying? Ah! Yes. I have now become a legal adult."

"Mr. Black, are you going to reach a point some time tonight?"

"Patience, my dear. Good things come to those who wait."

She sighs.

He continues.

"And so. Now that it is legal, I wished to propose a date."

"I think, Mr. Black, that the date just is, rather than being something one proposes."

"…not that sort of date. A dating date. A quest for food or other enjoyment between two people. Or more, that's fine too. But… a romantic endeavor. Between us."

She blinks. That is… really not where she had expected this conversation to go.

"And, look, before you say it. I know you're my professor, still, and if you want to wait until school is out that's fine. I completely understand. And if you just don't like me, I understand that too. James tells me I'm an acquired taste. And Remus says all of my friends have Stockholm Syndrome. So I know not everyone… anyway. What I'm trying to say is that there's a war on. People are dying and we both know it's only getting worse from here. And I don't know about you, but I don't want to live my life with regrets."

It's clear he's thought this out.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Black. You are still, as you said, my student."

She doesn't say more, because if she keeps speaking, she honestly isn't sure what's going to come out of her mouth.

He bites his lip, drags his teeth over his top lip, and then nods. "I understand."

He leaves.

The ideas he has planted do not go with him.

…

She's too curious. The thought doesn't leave her mind, and it doesn't help that he will not stop flirting with her. None of it is any sort of pressure, because despite his family, he has grown up fine. But it's a constant reminder that he's there. It's a constant reminder that he wants her, if she wants him.

He's wormed his way into her normally tidy thoughts and turned them into a complete disarray. He grins at her and she questions everything she thought she knew.

It's driving her mad.

She is content to leave it at curiosity until he joins the Order of the Phoenix.

But then, suddenly, she's seeing him every week in a capacity besides that of his teacher. She's seeing him passionately defending his ideas, planning things with a wickedly bright strategic mind, fiercely protecting his friends.

When someone questions his loyalty because of his name and his heritage, he snaps back immediately, "There's more than one kind of family. And this is mine now."

He looks better when he's focused more on a real war and less on a petty childhood rivalry. He looks beautiful and brave and clever.

So on his eighteenth birthday, she says yes.

And admiration grows into respect which blooms into a small, fledgling love that she never thought could happen.

And she doesn't regret it.

Until he betrays them all.