Sirius opened his mouth to speak before realizing he’d failed to plan what he would say. “Um…hi there.” How eloquent, he thought. A short brunette Hufflepuff giggled. The pretty blonde Hufflepuff that James had admired was smiling prettily at him in an obvious attempt at coyness. Darby was blushing furiously. Mariah just stared at him, expressionless. He gazed back at her.

“Well, helloooo, Sirius Black!” drawled the blonde, “What brings you to our fair tree party?”

“I came to see Mariah,” he answered, his eyes not leaving Mariah even momentarily.

“Mariah? You sly girl… you didn’t tell us you were friends with Sirius Black!” The blonde put extra emphasis on the words “Sirius Black”, as if to imply any connection with him was particularly newsworthy. She curled her hand around Sirius’ bicep and continued, “Isn’t she naughty for keeping such a secret, Sirius.”

“I didn’t tell you I was friends with him, Erin, because I am not friends with him.” Mariah replied, watching Erin’s possessive behavior (and Sirius’ apparent discomfort with it) with amusement. “But don’t let me stop you from developing such a friendship, I think you’d get along famously. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

Mariah adjusted her pack on her shoulder and headed off down the path. When she passed by where Remus, James and Peter were sitting, she smiled and waved at Remus. Remus blushed a little as he waved back.

Sirius, meanwhile, had some difficulty extricating himself from the gaggle of girls who were now questioning him about his obviously unrequited interest in their friend. Eventually he yanked his arm out of Hufflepuff Erin’s grasp and chased after Mariah. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his ‘friends’ laughing and giving him the ‘Way to go!’ signal as he passed them.

“Wait!” Sirius called when he was within reach of Mariah. He reached out and grabbed her shoulder to pull her around to face him. She jerked her shoulder out of his grasp but turned to face him of her own accord.

“What do you want from me, Black?” Mariah stared at him incredulously. “What could possibly be so blasted important to justify your manhandling me so?”

Sirius’ look became chagrined as he answered slowly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Why?” challenged Mariah. “I can’t think of anything we have to talk about.”

Sirius was shocked by her apparent antipathy towards him. “I just…want to get to know you better, that’s all.” Merlin’s teeth, he thought. I hope that didn’t sound as stupid to her as it did reverberating in my head.

“You want to get to know me better,” she repeated. “Again I ask…why?”

“I…I just want to, that’s all.” Sirius felt himself blush under her annoyed stare. Since when did he blush?!?

Mariah’s eyes narrowed as she asked, “Is this some kind of joke? Did your friend Potter dare you to do this?”

“James?” Sirius replied in confusion. “Of course not. He didn’t even know I was interested in you until a few minutes ago.” Oops. Blast his loose lips.

Mariah still seemed unconvinced of his sincerity, but softened a little as she replied, “Well, I don’t mean to hurt your feelings or anything but you’re really not my type. Not my type at all. Seriously, you should go back and talk to Erin. She’s really a nice girl, even if she is a little forward. I think you’d be much better suited to her.” She sighed. “I really do need to go now. I’m sorry, Sirius.”

Sirius watched the girl depart toward the Hufflepuff dormitories. Not her type? Sirius knew, modesty aside, that he was easily one of the three best looking boys in their class. Erin’s behavior was quite typical of the fourth-year female population of Hogwarts, actually. They usually fell over each other vying for his attention. Yet this one dismissed him without a second glance.

He sucked in a breath as the thought hit him. Snape. Maybe their relationship was more than it seemed; the git was into all sorts of dark magic, maybe he’d enchanted her somehow so that he wouldn’t have any competition for her affections. Surely no girl in her right mind would prefer that ugly dark prat to him? Surely not.

Speak of the devil, Sirius thought. Snape himself was walking, books in hand, toward the castle entrance, apparently oblivious to his presence. Sirius headed toward him at a brisk walk, drew in behind him and gave him a bit of a shove. The books went flying, and Snivellus whirled around to face him.

“Looking for a rematch, Black?” Snape sneered at him. “Perhaps you’d prefer an extra nose this time?”

“No thanks, Snivellus, I can smell you quite well with the one I have. But I didn’t come over here to discuss anatomy with you.”

“Really,” drawled Snape. “You could have fooled me.”

“I wanted to have a …chat … about your little Hufflepuff girlfriend.” Sirius noted the expression on Snape’s face change several times inexplicably before returning quickly to its previous sneer.

“Hmm… I can’t think of one reason why I would discuss my love life with you, Black.”

“I don’t know what you’re doing to her, but I know you’re up to something, Snivellus. No girl in her right mind would have anything to do with a greasy git like you. You had better watch your back, because I’ll be watching. And when I figure out what you’ve done to her, believe me, you’ll pay.” Snape was staring at him, expression unchanged, apparently unimpressed. Sirius kicked one of Snape’s books up in the air before walking away “Don’t forget your books.”

---

Snape waited until Black was far away before bending over to retrieve his fallen books. As he Reparo’d away the dents and scratches in his books, Snape pondered the very bizarre warning he’d just received. He’d figured out quickly that his ‘little Hufflepuff girlfriend’ must be Mariah. Black must have heard the gossip a few weeks back and took it closer to heart than any of the Slytherins who were spreading it had. But the other part made absolutely no sense at all. Black seemed to believe that he had… enchanted her...or something similar. Where he got that idea, Snape couldn’t begin to guess. Mariah had been acting normally as far as he could tell. She certainly didn’t seem enchanted to him.

Severus strolled slowly back to his dormitory, working the puzzle in his mind as he walked. Normally he ignored Black’s taunting, since it consisted primarily of unimaginative insults. But there was something different here, something that didn’t quite fit, and Snape had never been able to resist a mystery. He repeated Black’s words over and over in his head, until the pieces snapped into place.

“No girl in her right mind would have anything to do with a greasy git like you.”

Black thought that the only explanation for the supposed relationship between himself and the Hufflepuff was that he’d somehow magically forced himself on her.

Snape could feel his face getting red and the blood rushing to his head. What a despicable prick, he thought. Snape knew he wasn’t the best looking boy around, by far, but to imply he’d have to resort to magic in order to attract a girl…ridiculous. I could attract a girl if I wanted to, I just don’t want to, he thought. There were no girls at Hogwarts that were worthy of his attention. Some were pretty, true, but stupid or giggly or insipid to a one. Ironically enough, Mariah was probably one the best of the lot, now that she didn’t bother him with incessant chatter anymore. She was a bit round in the middle and her gigantic eyes were too far apart and she still laughed too much but overall she was pleasant company.

And Sirius Black was jealous. It all made sense now. Snape grinned diabolically; this was going to be fun.