"What's your problem, McKinnon?" Sirius demanded, doing his best to keep his jaw from twitching angrily as he watched her sitting before him, so nonchalant while he put himself out on a limb for her, laughing callously when he had been nervously preparing for this moment.

"I'm not the one with the problem," Marlene said, her smile still spread infuriatingly wide across her face, shaking her head lightly. It was a blazingly beautiful spring day and they were sitting together at the edge of the lake, toes dipped in the water as they let the sun tan their faces. "I don't understand why you're getting so worked up over this."

"I'm not worked up," Sirius snapped, proving himself wrong. He screwed his face up tightly and tried to find the right words to make his case. "I just bloody told you that I'm in love with you, and you just…" he waved his hands nonsensically at her, at her laughter and casual attitude, getting more frustrated by the second. "You roll your eyes and tell me that I'm not."

"You're not," she repeated, reaching over and pushing him lightly on the arm. The sunlight was bouncing off her dark hair and her tanned legs stretched down into the water, long and tan, yet just looking at her infuriated him in a way he couldn't explain. "I've heard you say those words to a lot of girls, and it was to get them into bed. You've already got me there, you don't need to pull out the dramatics."

"I'm not being dramatic," Sirius huffed, but even as he said the words he realized why she wouldn't believe him. Aggravated, he ran a hand through his hair. The words he needed just weren't coming; there was a reason he'd never been good at this sort of thing. "It's different with you."

"Oh, I'm different," she said with another laugh, looking out over the lake as she swept her hair over one shoulder, apparently dismissing him altogether. He loved the side of her that joked around with him, but not now. Not when he needed her to know. "Am I special, Sirius? Do I give you butterflies?"

"Sod off, Marlene," Sirius snapped, and for the first time the grin slipped off her face. Sensing that she had finally crossed the line, she reached out for his hand, closing both of hers around it with a playful squeeze.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, scooting closer to him along the lakeside and crossing one of her legs over his, splashing him lightly with the cold water. "Look, Sirius, you can't blame me for being a little skeptical here…I know you better than anyone."

"Yeah…you do," Sirius said quietly, the corners of his mouth turning up grimly. He turned to look at her, stretching his index finger out and tapping her on the nose with it.

"Oh, don't do that," she said, scrunching her nose up a twisting her face away. "You know I hate-"

"Your nose, yeah," Sirius cut across her with a small laugh. "Don't forget, I know you better than anybody, McKinnon." Suddenly, an idea hit him and he turned to her, enthusiasm renewed. "I do, don't I?"

"You might," she said with a dubious shrug, but he saw that her interest was piqued. Marlene leaned in toward him, her face hovering only inches from his own. Nothing spurned her on like a challenge.

"Well, I know you hate you nose," he started, raising an eyebrow, studying the freckles that danced across the bridge of it. Who could hate a nose like that?

"That's a given," she said with an eye roll. "Is that the best you can do?"

"I know that you only like strawberry ice cream," he started slowly, reaching a hand up and tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear, enjoying the way her eyes lit up with surprise. "And only when you're sick. I know that your favorite weather is thunderstorms. I know that you hate cats because you think they'd be stuck up if they could talk, and I know that you can only sleep if one of your legs is outside of the blankets…even if you're freezing."

"Not bad," Marlene said with an impressed nod, lips curling back into a smile. Sirius wasn't done yet, though; now the words were pouring out of him faster than he would have normally allowed.

"I know that you hate when people see you cry," he said after a long exhale, "So whenever you get upset you try to hide in the girl's bathroom on the fourth floor. I know that whenever you get a letter from home, you flip it over in your hands three times or else you think it will be bad news. I know that you talk in your sleep, but you'll deny it until the day you die."

"Okay, okay, you've made your point." Marlene muttered, face turning red, averting her gaze to the grass below them, picking at it absent.

"Mar, look at me," he said softly, placing a hand under his chin and tipping it up toward him so that his stormy gray eyes were locked into her dark brown. "Just listen. I know that when you have a nightmare, you can't go back to sleep until you've checked under the bed and changed into different clothes. I know that when you laugh, it can make me forget everything, even if I'm having the worst day of my life. I know the sound of you coming up the stairs before you even open the door. I know that when you're cranky in the morning, I need to feed you before you get into a bad mood, because otherwise there's no going back. Okay?"

"Okay," she agreed quietly, her eyes crinkling around the edges as if she'd never quite seen him in a proper light before.

"And I know that I'm in love with you," he finished, his voice breaking off, lifting his hand and putting it to her face gently. "I know that, and I need you to know it too."

Suddenly her lips were crashing onto his, moving softly and with gratuitous urgency. A soft noise escaped her as he shifted his weight, guiding her legs out of the water and laying her down onto the overgrown grass and pinning her down gently. When he pulled away, she was beaming up at him, long hair splayed around her like a sun-streaked halo, a smile dancing across her lips.

"I'm in love with you too," she said after a moment of comfortable silence, her laugh a flash of white teeth and heart shaped lips. Sirius molded his face into the best expression of sarcasm before he answered her:

"Eh…I don't think you are. You're going to have to prove that one, McKinnon."