cribellate | SERAPHIM DIAS

[She may be muggleborn, but she is not by any stretch of the imagination stupid, or naive. She's in Ravenclaw for more reasons than the fact that she has a gift for Arithmancy. But she didn't think that when she agreed to help someone on the Quidditch team bring up their marks for it that it would be someone on the Slytherin Quidditch team.

Or that it would be Sirius Black.

She's only met him in passing, in class. They've had a number of classes together, although they've never worked together, why would they? Ravenclaws are rarely good fits, academically, with other Houses, they fixate too much, and while she speaks up when called on, she rarely volunteers more information than needed. But he's never struck her as stupid - certainly, his marks are always good, and Arithmancy is an elective, and not one many people take anyway, so she's not sure why he would need academic help. But she also knows a lot of pureblooded students take it because it's expected, it's elevating and smart as opposed to something like Herbology, which is just rooting around in the dirt.

Which may be how Sirius Black sees her, if he even remembers who she is.

So when she opens the door to the empty study room, she really expects to spend the entire evening alone, without anyone else coming in to interrupt. She expects he will blow her off, and that will be the end of that.]

[Sirius sits, knee bent, leg braced against the table and arms folded over his chest. He barely favors her with a glance before he looks away again, haughty and disinterested--and it's hardly an act. He couldn't be more disinterested.

This nearly feels like a detention. Sirius Black doesn't need academic assistance. He's never had trouble with a single subject; there is nothing he can't handle. Except, it seems, for arithmancy, which has escaped him. There's something about the sheer logic of numbers, an unmovable wall of them, which he can't face with anything but-- not dread, not exactly. He's not some sniveling kid, and it's only a subject in school--one of many--

But the injustice of being taken aside and told that he was being assigned someone to help him, academically--and then to find that it was no one he'd ever associate with, someone beneath him in so many ways--this girl, Sera, who he's hardly paid mind to, hardly given second glances-- oh, yeah, all right, she's fit, that can be admired, but there is so much else wrong with her. He'd informed Professor Sinistra that it was an insult, and he was given a detention for that, and told in no uncertain terms that if he didn't accept this help, then he would find himself failing.

Failure is not a word Sirius likes the taste of. So here he is, sulking--definitely sulking--with a scowl twisted across his face already.]

And here I thought you were a bit more timely. I don't like waiting.

No, no one does.

[She says that in her soft southern accent, with the slight hint of Oxford in her voice. There's class there, too, it's not a posh London one, there's a touch of something lower-class in the way she speaks, and it's often why she doesn't say anything at all.

She just looks at him, surprised. It's ridiculous, really. Men should not come in this flavor of beautiful, she thinks in an abstract way, and sets her books down. But there's a scowl on his face, he already looks unhappy about this, so she already knows that this will not end well.]

But I'm not late. And to be honest, I didn't think you would come.

[She adds that.]

Edited 2013-10-06 15:55 (UTC)

And you'd have been right, except I didn't have a choice.

[He glances back at her, with a haughty little sneer. Let's get one thing straight, that's what this sneer says. We're together only because we have to be. This is not by choice. And so he doesn't unfold his arms, or sit forward, or go to open a book. Not just yet.]

Tell me this is more or less a detention for you, too.

[She tilts her head, looks just a touch puzzled]

What do you think I would be getting punished for?

[She had been asked, by her professor, who had been asked presumably by Slughorn, who doesn't want to see his Quidditch team lose.]

They asked me, and I accepted. That's all, Black.

Truthfully, Dias? I have no idea what you would be getting punished for. I don't waste a great deal of time thinking about you at all.

[He leans forward then, sharply, and shoves open his textbook.]

Get started, then, I haven't got all night. There's loads of better things to be doing than this. Not that you're likely to know, Ravenclaw, but: there are.

Like what?

Snogging your cousin?

[She very very casually pulls her books out of her bag and sets them on the table, and looks at him, blankly.]

[That's cleverer and quicker and more cutting than he'd expected her to be, and something of real irritation--closer to anger--twists first across his face, before he fights that down. Instead, he stares at her, the dark look in his eye perhaps the only suggestion at the blacker mood in him.

But he smiles, a little, coldly.]

Jealous?

Edited 2013-10-07 21:28 (UTC)

[She glances up at him and recognizes that look. Normally she doesn't rile people up like this, but she doesn't like the way he dismisses her, treats this like punishment.]

Of being your cousin? No, I'll keep my mudblood, thank you.

Give me your work, please.

[Sirius laughs at that, once, shortly. That's a defence that he's heard some of them adopt, that near-pride in dirty blood, but he's not encountered it directly until now.

Carelessly, he flips through his book, as if looking for a bit of parchment--but his eyes are still on here, cool.]

I meant more the snogging. You were really quick to leap to that possibility.

[She has a hand reached out for that bit of parchment that he's looking for]

Well I hate to break a boy's heart, when I say no.

And who wouldn't jump to that conclusion? It's practically all I see you do outside the Quidditch pitch. Every girl in school knows that if you step out with Black you end up on your back.

[It's a particularly classy rhyme thought up by one of his castoffs.]

[It's not offensive, it's true, and he grins a little like the rhyme is some great badge of pride he gets to wear. He gives up the search for the parchment--the pretense of the search, really--and sits back, shifting his hips off the chair a little so he can dig his cigarettes out of his pocket.]

Clever. Are you really saying no?

[He wouldn't, probably. He'd toy with her, maybe, because he can, because she's resisting him--but she's a mudblood, not worth his actual time or attention. The conclusion of it would be a little cruel at best. But if he has to endure this-- tutoring, he might as well make the best of it, and he offers the cigarettes to her before he takes one for himself. Manners.]

[Her expression softens, goes from defensive into something softer, more feminine. She is always on her guard around boys and maybe even more around these pureblooded boys who just like to make everyone miserable.]

I mean it. I have no interest in a broken heart or a sullied reputation.

[She doesn't take a cigarette, and instead takes his book, looking through it for something, notes, anything that might tell her about his level in this class.]

[Fine. More for him, then, and he slips a cigarette out and shoves them back into his pocket, digs out his heavy silver lighter. It's got the Black family crest on it, of course, and he rubs his thumb against it as he flicks it to life, lights his cigarette with it and leans back, blowing a stream of smoke from his nose in a casual exhale.]

No interest in a good time, either. You Ravenclaw girls, you're all the same. Blood doesn't even come into it.

[He lifts his cigarette to his lips again, as he adds:] There's nothing in there, don't waste your time.

Really?

[She closes the book and wrinkles her nose, though that's more at not a single note, in any margin]

That's not what Millie Turner would say, if you asked her.

[There's a pause. Millie Turner is pureblood in the most scraping of fashions - no one can point to a muggle anywhere in the family, but she hasn't got one of those pureblood names, either.]

Of course she would scratch my eyes out if she knew I knew.

[Turners, they're not really worth anyone's time. Useful, vaguely, and Sirius spares a second of thought to conjure up an image of Millie Turner. Not bad. Blood status helps. But Dias here is more fit, actually, for all that she's got dirty blood, and Sirius likes girls who are easy, but he also likes girls that push back.

So he leans forward, his elbow on the table, cigarette shifted to the corner of his mouth a moment so he can grin at her--dark, knowing.]

And how do you know? Don't tell me you're a secret gossip.

I don't need gossip to use my eyes, Black.

[She looks up at him, suddenly, and is surprised by the look he's giving her. It's not precisely comfortable.]

You know you might not be failing this course if you took a single note.

I'm not failing.

[He's not looking away, either. He keeps his eyes fixed on hers, that little smirk still on his face.]

I'll do what I always do. Sit the exam, get an O, finish the class that way. What are you implying, exactly, by the way? Just so we're clear. What are you saying you've seen?

Well, to begin with, I've seen your exams, and no, you're not getting any qualifications-

[But then, maybe, there's a challenge there. Seraphim doesn't usually rise to those kinds of things, but, well.]

I don't sleep. I see a lot of things. For instance, your brother was doing more than snogging Marion Winters from Hufflepuff behind the one-eyed witch.

[She shrugs]

And even I know her assets don't merit that level of dedication, you may want to sit him down and explain that there's nothing that can get the stink of desperation that bad out of robes.

[Why have you seen my marks, he nearly demands it of her--but he doesn't actually care much about good marks. He always manages in the end, one way or another.

The detail about Marion Winters is far more interesting anyways--Regulus, really; Sirius' nose wrinkles up--and a second later he's smirking, though it's less keen than it was before.]

Really.

[And the way he's looking at her now is a bit different as well--calculating, nearly, though still with that smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.]

Why don't you tell him? You're the all-seeing eye around here, who never sleeps, for... whatever reason.

[She just gives him a look, like, seriously.]

You know very well that even if I cared enough to tell him, he would dismiss it. And I don't care enough to tell him.

[He raises his eyebrows a little in return, like, seriously right back at you.]

But you cared enough to tell me.

[She sighs, finally. Why is she doing this - why did she agree to do this?]

We're not getting any work done at all, are we?

It's a simple question.

[He blows a stream of smoke out--not in her face, mercifully--and grins at her.]

D'you really like this shit that much, that you're so eager to get started?

It's not shit. And yes, I actually enjoy it.

[She does know how to relax, though. She sits back, and looks over at him.]

You care more about what's going on around here than you let on.

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