ʜᴏɢᴡᴀʀᴛs, 1976

┍S┚ɪʀɪᴜs ᴋɴᴇᴡ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴠᴇʀʏ ᴍᴏᴍᴇɴᴛ, that both him, James and Peter were dragons food.

   Three of the four Marauders had waltzed into a random compartment on the Hogwarts Express to hopefully prank another group of innocent, unsuspecting first years. James looking cockier than Severus Snape during a potions lesson, Peter looking up at his two best friends like they'd found the cure for dragon pox and Sirius, the man of the hour, dressed like he'd rolled out of a rock magazine. As three mischievous eyes spotted the target sitting in the corner of the compartment with a pricey looking vintage book in one hand and a pencil in the other, the one dressed in the leather jacket decided to be a complete chaser and immediately thunked a smoke bomb onto the red carpet.

Sirius had once again truly and royally fucked up.

Eventually the smokey mist disappeared and the end result was a sight for smokey eyes. Covered in soot and visibly shaking with shock and anger, the brunette slowly turned her head towards the door that framed the culprits. She lifted up her book in an attempt to try damage control and shake off the soot but it made it worse. Her book was now illegible. Then, in an attempt to shake off the spot that had landed onto her previously immaculate school robes, she stood up, onto to bare the brunt of the train abruptly stopping.

She subsequently fell forward and hit her head on the seat in front of her.

The moment her dark brown eyes met with the stormy grey eyes of Sirius Black, something within her snapped.

"I will give you five seconds to apologise before I hex you to Mars with a bright orange tan so if you don't want to end up looking like a tangerine, you'll do as I say." The girl confidently declared as she stood up from the floor with her spine straight, her dignity slightly chipped but surprisingly withstanding a lot of humiliation. Her hands were gripping her wand so tightly that Sirius could see her knuckles turn white.

Sirius visibly flinched at the girl's surprising change in attitude and stepped into the compartment. Of course, the girl retreated two steps, only to be backed into the window. His grey eyes scanned her over, looking for any memories of steamy makeout sessions or previous pranks.

Nothing came up.

Maybe he was so black out drunk that he'd forgotten her face. But then he spotted a shiny prefect badge on her robes.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you that it's rude to stare?" She spoke again, crossing her arms in a hostile fashion as Sirius looked back to the door to find no one there. James and Peter had run away, presumably spotting her prefect badge as well.

"She tried to teach me a lot of things but pure blood etiquette didn't quite get processed in my brain." He retorted, giving her a challenging look. "It's all mumbo jumbo anyway, if you think inbreeding causes greater power, you seriously need to get your head checked."

Scoffing, the girl waved her wand and the soot vanished. "Who said I was pure blooded?" Taking her book form her seat, she sat down and opened it to examine the damage up close with scrutiny, "You know nothing about me, Black." She looked up at him again, "And I'm expecting an apology unless you're feeling the orange glow."

Oh. So she knew who he was?

"How do you know I'm Sirius Bla-," She cut him off with a glare as he interrupted her reading.

"Gryffindor tie, stupidly long hair, egocentric and arrogantly thinks he's charming. Besides, I know you and your brother look alike." Sirius opened and closed his mouth, resembling a goldfish.

"I knew you were a snake."

"Have you even paid any attention to the colour of my robes or perhaps the colour of my prefect badge?" She asked, "Oh wait! You're Sirius I'm-So-Handsome-It-Compensates-For-My-Lack-Of-Braincells Black!"

He purposefully did not look down at her robes, choosing to fixate his line of vision on her face.

"I'm going to be honest here, little Miss Perfect Prefect." He took a step back at the motion of her wand slowly rising up to point at him, "I don't care about your house, your year or your age. I don't care if your neighbour's dog died or if you've slept your way to the top in a maths club."

She didn't even blink as she simply muttered a spell, letting it reach it's target and serve its purpose. "Kindly fuck off."

"What's your name?" He quickly blurted out before she could close the door on his face. "I'd like to take you out to Hogsmeade." That of course was a lie, he only needed her name to get payback for the tan. Maybe a switcharoo of mealworms for her cornflakes, or a year's supply of dungbombs infesting her dormitory with unpleasantness—

She scoffed.

"We aren't even close to Hogwarts and you're asking me on a date?" He nodded, searching her blank face for an answer, "No. I'm not telling you my name and I'm certainly not going on a date with you so goodbye!" She wasn't dumb, and she wasn't just sorted into Ravenclaw for knowing half of the periodic table. The so called Marauders were infamous degenerates with a complete disregard for rules... and a notoriety for pulling some of the meanest pranks in Hogwarts' history.

She walked past him to open the door and waved her hand at him, shooing him out of the compartment before pulling down the curtain that would shield her from anyone's prying eyes.

Outside the compartment, he peeked through the tiny gap in the curtain to see her opening her book once more before shoving it into her satchel. 'Well I guess I've got my work cut out for me.' He whispered, turning to walk back to the Marauders compartment.

"So you got rejected and kicked out of a carriage in a span of 5 minutes?" Remus asked, trying to reason with himself. 'Don't ask him any more questions... ask him who it was!'

"Who was it?" James asked, taking a bite out of his Pumpkin Pasty as he listened to him. "You clearly haven't snagged her yet."'

"Dunno, she refused to tell me her name. And why would I want to waste my good looks on her troll like features?" Sirius laughed at the three boys who stared at him with disapproval, "Oh chill out, I'm only joking about her troll like features."

"Not cool, mate." Peter patted Sirius on the shoulder before pulling out another fudge fly. "Anyway, why are we discussing this for such a long period of time?" He asked, shoving another fudge fly into his mouth.

"Look at me!" Sirius growled, running a hand through his hair.

"Don't you look like a yolk." James cooed at his friend, "We should get cracking."

"I thought he looked like a tangerine peel." Remus replied, "Bitter, discarded and orange."

"That's not the point! I'm gonna get back at her, I just need to find her blasted name."

"Amongst a couple hundred of students?" Remus asked.

"Oh." Peter paused but his eyes lit up, "Did you see what colour her prefect badge was?! She's bound to be in 5th, 6th or 7th year!"

Sirius paused to remember. "It was either blue or green. I don't remember." Sirius himself was well acquainted with the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff Prefect girls so he knew she wasn't one of them.

"An Eagle or a Snake. Ouch. Bookworm or Backstabber?" James patted Sirius' back with mock sorrow. "You're doomed."

"I just need to know her name." Sirius whispered, his head in the clouds.

"Well we've got the basic description. Brunette, pretty, prefect, Ravenclaw or Slytherin and upper years!" Peter clapped his hands with enthusiasm. "Sirius is going to finally do something for himself!"

"She could run away at the sight of him. But we don't need a James Potter 2.0 in our midst." Remus scowled at the thought of Sirius and James both whining and complaining about their 'loves of their lives'.

"Oi!" Both Sirius and James exclaimed, James threw his Pumpkin Pasty wrapper at Remus, who looked at the boy with disgust. "You're the one picking that up."

"Besides, I'm not in love with her and I'm certainly not going to stalk her like I have nothing better to do with my time." Sirius said in a matter-of-fact manner, like a professor chastising their student.

"We'll see."

Hello! Please vote or comment! I'm finally gonna start writing more!

EDITED- 20/04/19

A/N: I've changed up the dynamics a bit.