Disclaimer: Anything you recognize in this story does not belong to me!

It was too easy, really.

Too easy to imagine myself running my hands through his long, luscious hair and looking into those alluring gray eyes.

It disgusted me that words like "luscious" and "alluring" were the kind that came to mind when I thought of him, but those were exactly the kinds of words one used to describe Sirius Black.

That was, of course, if the words were meant to have a positive connotation. Words like "manipulative", "tantalizing" and "womanizer" also came to mind, on days where his incessant flirting with every female in sight became slightly irritating.

Though, the reasonable side of me hated to admit, the irritation most likely stemmed from the envy I felt when I watched him charm his way through a multitude of girls, none of which, begrudgingly, were me.
It was impossible not to be jealous of whichever girl was sitting on his lap in front of the fire on any given day. And it was impossible not to imagine myself in her place, with his hands on my waist and his lips whispering in my ear...

The fact that three quarters of the female population, and most likely a sizeable portion of the male one as well, seemed to join in my admiration made me simultaneously feel better and worse. Better, in the sense that I wasn't the only one who went weak in the knees when he grinned, with that stupid, perfect smile in which one side of his mouth turned up slightly higher than the other (not that I noticed). It meant attraction was inevitable and I wasn't alone in the silent torture, nor was it in my fault. But worse in the sense that I was falling for his annoying, twinkly-eyed little trap. And that I had that much more competition.

I wasn't really competing. And if I was, the scales were most definitely not in balance, and I was on the side that tipped lower. Any competition in which one competitor has zero chance of winning is not really a competition at all. Sirius had never looked at me the way he looked at other girls; never eyed me in the hallway between classes, with a smirk that just screamed "meet me in the broom closet for some one-on-one time". The horny git.

Unfortunately, I couldn't speak any of my frustrations out loud to anyone, owing to the fact that Sirius was my, for lack of a better word, friend. Our friendship basically consisted of me sneering at his late night common room snog-fests from close up, as opposed to from across the room, but still, it was a friendship. Somehow I couldn't see even overly confident Sirius Black, who brushed off insults as if they were houseflies, being all too pleased with what I, as his supposed friend, thought of him.

I couldn't understand how I could dislike someone so much during the day, yet lie awake at night fantasizing, in great detail, about the shape of that same person's lips, and how they would feel against mine, just once...

These fantasies were probably the source of my enmity. If I wasn't so insanely attracted to him, I would most likely laugh off the constant girl attention, like the majority of our other friends did. "That's just Sirius," James would say, and Remus would shake his head disapprovingly, an amused smile teasing his lips. But because my stomach wrenched unhappily every time I saw Sirius latch his mouth onto someone else's, I couldn't help but scowl and fume silently. I shouldn't have been cursing Sirius under my breath. I should've been cursing myself. As hard as I tried, and oh, did I try, I couldn't shake him off my mind. So I was just going to have to deal with it, and continue living my life admiring from afar. Or rather, from up close, too close for comfort even. The phrase "so close and yet so far" had never seemed more appropriate.

The typical Saturday afternoon in mid-October: I was curled up in an armchair in front of the fire, absent-mindedly twirling my wand to stir the dregs in my coffee cup, feigning interest in the Transfiguration textbook in my lap. Peter was in the chair next to me, fascinated by an ant crawling across the pages of his History of Magic book, and Mary was across from us, pretending to work on her Astrology homework but really watching Remus and Sirius play a game of particularly intense Wizard Chess at the table in the middle of us all. Her gaze, predictably, kept lingering on Sirius' concentrated face for longer than necessary. Lily was plastered to the side of the couch, trying to stay as far away from James as possible. He was pestering her with questions about the Potions essay, just as an excuse to talk to her. I caught her eye and gave her a sympathetic smile, and she rolled her eyes with exasperation just as James scooted even closer to her, asking loudly what she thought her Amortentia potion would smell like.

"Like the blood that's going to be shed if you don't stop asking me questions," she snapped, and James, looking dumbstruck, fell silent. Remus laughed quietly as he surveyed his chess board to decide his next move, but stopped and looked apologetic when James shot him a death glare.

"Thank you, Lily, for letting me know it's my blood you'll be smelling in your love potion. Quite romantic, really," James retorted after regaining his composure. Even I chuckled under my breath, feeling sorry for Lily. James was impossible to scare off; the harder she tried to get rid of him, the harder he tried to get her to go out with him.

"That's not what I meant and you know it," Lily seethed through clenched teeth, burning red. She shot James a quick look, and after seeing the satisfied grin on his face, she stood up, gathered her belongings, and stormed off to the girls' dormitory without another word.

"What did I say?" James asked, feigning innocence, and leaned back against the couch with his arms behind his head, the same satisfied smirk on his lips.

"You know what you should do, mate?" Sirius said, not tearing his eyes off the board as one of Remus' knights violently smashed into his only remaining bishop, "You should try and make her jealous,"

I scoffed, in no way surprised that player-boy Sirius would come up with such an awful idea. He turned and looked at me, surprised, and my heart fluttered a little at how cute he looked with his eyebrows furrowed. Stupid heart.

"What? It's brilliant! I know a certain Hufflepuff who would be happy to latch herself onto James whenever Lily's around. And probably when she's not around, too," Sirius grinned, turning to James and wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"Except Lily's not exactly the jealous type. Especially since she doesn't see James like that at all," I countered, and mouthed "sorry" to James when I saw his crestfallen expression.

"Aw, come on, Charlotte, let us have a little fun," Sirius whined, turning back to his game and edging on one of his rooks to take down Remus' pawn.

"You really don't think she likes me even the slightest bit?" he asked me sadly, chewing on his lip and stealing glances towards the girls' dormitory as if waiting for her to come back down any second.

"Er, well," I paused, torn. If I was going to be truthful, the answer was no, but there was a hopeful glint in his eye that I couldn't bring myself to crush, "I guess anything is possible, really. I'm not a seer, so as far as I know, maybe she does…will like you," James smiled thankfully and turned back to his essay. Remus caught my eye and winked, knowing that I had lied to spare our friend's feelings. I smiled back, then wrapped a lock of my blonde hair around my finger, lost in thought.

If I had asked any of my friends whether they believed Sirius could ever like me, would they respond the same way I had answered James?

Would they lie to give me a glimmer of hope or would the idea be so ludicrous that they wouldn't even hesitate to bring me back to reality?

I shook my head, the idea of ever revealing my fantasies to anyone almost causing me to laugh out loud.

As if.

A/N: If anyone is reading this, thank you times a million. If anyone takes the time to review, thank you even more.

I'm super interested to see where I can take this!