Current mood:	accomplished
Entry tags:	*fic, character: oc, character: sirius black, fandom: harry potter, genre: fluff, genre: humor, genre: romance, gift, rating: g, ship: sirius/oc

Fetch
Title: Fetch
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Sirius/OFC (Daphne Littleton)
Rating: G
Word Count: 842
Summary: She’s rather nervous now, and with what she’s certain is good reason. This is Sirius Black, after all. ‘Going somewhere’ may possibly mean a trek onto the castle rooftop or into Professor Dumbledore’s private bathroom.
Author's Notes: For unwing, who AGES AGO requested Sirius/Daphne, humorous romance, and fetch. This is a small continuation of Lockdown (PG-13), in which Daphne and Sirius are first introduced.

Fetch

They’re on a mission, apparently—a covert operation of the utmost illegality. The corridors are still just as deserted as they ought to be on such a cold, gloomy day, but Sirius insists: they’ve got to sneak.

“But why?” Daphne asks, struggling to keep up as he leads her along by the hand. Her fingers are beginning to lose their feeling—which is a shame.

“’Cause we’re going somewhere we’re not s’posed to go,” he replies matter-of-factly after placing his finger against her lips to quiet her.

She wonders why he’s suddenly so insistent upon touching her all the time.

(Not that she minds.)

“Er,” she says. “And where’s that, precisely?”

She’s rather nervous now, and with what she’s certain is good reason. This is Sirius Black, after all. ‘Going somewhere’ may possibly mean a trek onto the castle rooftop or into Professor Dumbledore’s private bathroom.

Sirius beams at her and declares, “Outside!”

Daphne stares at him. “Outside?”

“Yeah. Outside.”

“But that’s, um… That’s not exactly breaking the rules, is it?”

He blinks at her. “’Course it is. Leastways, if you’re a Marauder.”

For a moment, she thinks he’s joking.

But she’s a quick learner.

---

Outside, it’s cold and wet and also—oh, yes—raining. One step beyond the castle entryway, and Daphne’s hair is hanging in a pathetic sheet, possibly making her look like a drowned rat. And she wouldn’t mind so much if Sirius weren’t still holding her hand.

(She supposes her fingers will start dropping off any second now.)

He doesn’t hesitate before leaping up and down and making rude gestures at the clouds, hollering at the top of his lungs. She can’t hear him much above the rain, but the few words she can make out sound suspiciously like a challenge. And obscenities—possibly a threat. But mostly a challenge that only a stir-crazy boy would bother to shout at the sky.

Daphne laughs until water goes up her nose, and then Sirius pats her back gingerly.

---

It’s easy to find a stick on the Hogwarts grounds—as easy as finding a needle in a haystack with a Summoning Charm.

“Accio stick!” Sirius commands enthusiastically.

He’s walloped in the face by a small bundle of splintered wood, and knocked to the ground by the impact. Daphne hears a loud squelching sound as he lands in the mud. She might gasp in horror, were she not paralyzed by surprise.

Still—

“Sirius!” she cries out after a moment.

(Then promptly feels stupid.)

He’s been lying motionless, covered in filth and grime and wood and looking altogether dead, but at the sound of his name, he perks up, a stick in his mouth and a delighted-on-the-cusp-of-manic look in his eyes.

“Found one!” he announces jubilantly.

“Is—is that—rather…” she stumbles, then clears her throat. “If that’s how you normally play Fetch, I think I’d like to change the rules. Maybe.”

He jumps to his feet, and mock-bows. She expects him to look disappointed, to tell her that it wasn’t a good idea in the first place to bring her out here if she’s going to be so utterly un-fun and disallow violence, but he doesn’t.

“’Course,” he says cheerily. No trace of resentment; no plans to lock her up in the Slytherin dungeons on charges of sacrilege.

He actually wants her here.

---

She’s terrible at throwing, even with magic, and more than once she’s almost poked out his eye, but she doesn’t give up. Most girls would, Sirius thinks; they wouldn’t even try. Blokes don’t care where exactly something’s been—most of them, anyway, except for maybe Moony, but he doesn’t count—but girls generally find the prospect of unsanitary things unappealing.

Littleton’s got mud all up and down her sleeves and on her cheeks, and she doesn’t even care.

She flings another stick through the air—having lost four already—and he flings himself after it, hurling his body off the ground gracefully. Or almost gracefully. He was potentially graceful an hour ago, but now he’s dizzy and sore and can hardly stand.

It feels brilliant.

He collapses, panting, with the stick grasped tightly between his fingers.

“I am slain!” he declares, and flops out his tongue dramatically, playing dead.

“What, already?” she asks. She’s breathing hard, too.

He peeks open one eye. “See? S’entertaining, isn’t it? Not childish, n’ all that?”

She tilts her head to one side to see him better, and her hair sticks to her face. “I suppose…” she says slowly, the corners of her lips twitching.

He pops open his other eye. “And fun?”

She crosses her arms. There’s mud splattered along her legs, too.

Sirius bats his eyelashes her. “Reckon you’d do it again?”

She bites her lip, but this time, she can’t stop the smile. “Just, er… not in this weather, right?”

“Deal.”

He pulls himself up to shake her hand, mud sliding between their fingers.

Sirius Black is not in love with Daphne Littleton.

The clouds are just looking a little less dark, is all.