Mistletoe
For the amazing @midnightelite ! Part of the Potterverse Gift Exchange.
The McKinnon's New Year's Eve party is the stuff of legends, but Marlene is far more focused on one Sirius Black.
Mistletoe
The McKinnon's New Year's Eve party was the sort of event that witches and wizards looked forward to all year. Budding DJs sent auditions to Angus, knowing the gig could fill their schedules for the rest of the year. Catering businesses sent Elspeth invitations to try new menu items and free birthday dinners. Friends and family blocked out their schedules after Christmas to come help the McKinnon's clean and set up for the party. And anyone who received an invite the beginning of December moved mountains to ensure that they could attend.
Marlene enjoyed the controlled chaos her parents orchestrated for the party every year, but she loved the few day of preparation more. The quiet lead up before the storm of people and music and food. She especially loved that only their closest friends and family came to help clean and set up for the party.
This year that included the Potters, as always, but the Potters included one more than the normal three.
Marlene had invited Sirius Black to this party every year they'd been at Hogwarts, but this year, their sixth year, was the first that he could come. The Potters had invited him to help prepare for the party, and to Marlene's delight, he'd agreed.
Marlene shifted the boxes in her arms as she walked from the shed in the back garden to the house. The sun peaked out from behind the clouds as snow crunched beneath her feet. The boxes blocked her view of the house, but not the sound of laughter coming from within. She reached for the door, trying to keep the boxes balanced in her arms. Fate had other plans. Marlene swore as the boxes tipped off balance, sliding forward. She lunged forward, hoping to trap the boxes between her chest and the door, but she forgot she'd been in the process of opening the door.
It played out in slow motion. The door swung open. The boxes fell forward. And Marlene braced for her own impact with the floor.
Instead of hardwood floor, she impacted with strong arms that steadied both her and the boxes in her arms.
"Really, Marls, there are better ways to get my attention than throwing yourself at me under the mistletoe."
Marlene rolled her eyes, stopping for a moment to look at one of the several sprigs of mistletoe her parents kept around the house. "Trust me, I don't need mistletoe as an excuse to kiss a bloke."
His body shook with his laughter and Marlene privately admitted that she wouldn't mind one bit if he took the mistletoe above them as an invitation to kiss her.
With a strength Marlene didn't realize he had, Sirius lifted her and the boxes from their precariously balanced position, set Marlene down in the entryway, took the boxes from her arms, and carefully placed them on the floor next to her.
"Thank you." Marlene tried to shake the desire to be back in his arms.
"Any time, Marls." He winked at her. "All good?"
"Yeah." She swallowed as his eyes traced her face. He took a step closer to her and Marlene couldn't stop from doing the same.
"Sirius, my boy? Did you find that broom?" Monty's voice called from the dining room.
"Here." Marlene spun to the hall closet and pulled out the broom. She turned to hand it to him and gasped when Sirius was right in front of her.
"Thanks." His fingers wrapped around hers instead of the broom, and he stepped closer.
"Of course." She barely heard her own voice.
"Sirius?" Monty called again.
Annoyance flickered across Sirius' face for the briefest moment, and Marlene agreed. She loved Monty like an uncle, but right now she wanted to see what would happen if Monty forgot he needed this broom.
Sirius slipped his hands from hers to the broom and stepped back. He gave her a smirk as her turned towards the dining room.
"Mistletoe isn't all bad." He winked at her.
"I never said it was bad." Marlene grinned. "Only that I don't need it as an excuse."
"Good to know." His gaze went heated for a long moment before he disappeared down the corridor, leaving Marlene short of breath for several moments after he was gone.
The rest of the days leading up to the party found Marlene watching Sirius, and most of the time without realizing it. To be fair, most of the time she looked up he was watching her as well. When she met his gaze he'd smirk and wink at her before going back to whatever task he was engaged in. But Marlene rather preferred when she would look at him and he wasn't already watching her. There was a presence to Sirius when he wasn't aware he was being observed. It lacked the cockiness he put forward, and instead he exuded a quiet confidence in every task he took on. There was so much more to Sirius, and every time she watched without his knowing, she learned a bit more about the man he hid behind his mask.
New Year's Eve finally came and Marlene was a bit sad it had. She'd enjoyed Sirius being around her home, and after tonight he wouldn't be around at all until the next year. Sure she'd see him at school, but it wouldn't be the same.
Marlene watched Sirius laugh at something Remus had said, his head back, his smile lighting up his face, it was exactly what she'd come to know as him in these last few days with him. And it embodied how over those days, she'd shifted from seeing him as one of her most fit friends, to seeing him as something more.
"Marlene?" Her mother tapped her shoulder. "Will you please grab another platter and bring it out here?"
"Sure." Marlene smiled as her mum hugged her.
She took one last look at Sirius and turned down the corridor to the kitchen.
"Running away from the party?" A voice she had come to recognize asked as she pulled the platter from the cupboard.
Sirius leant against the door frame as he smiled at her.
"Running errands for the party would be the more accurate descriptor." She smiled at him, setting the platter on the counter.
Sirius moved slowly to her side, his eyes not leaving hers. "That's a relief. I was worried the famed Marlene McKinnon hated her own party."
Marlene laughed and reached behind her to hold the counter, her heart beating so fast she worried she might pass out.
Sirius didn't stop his advance until his hands were covering hers. His body was so close, filling her senses with his scent, the sound of his breathing, the intensity of his stare.
"You said you didn't need mistletoe." He brought his forehead to rest against hers. "Is there something you do need?"
"To kiss a bloke?" She chuckled. "I prefer to want to."
His nose brushed hers and her eyes closed of their own accord. "Do you want to?"
She expected him to rush her. To kiss her like every other sloppy teenager. But she quickly realized why Sirius' reputation preceded him.
Sirius' lips were soft, as they slanted over hers, caressing, savoring, stealing not only her ability but her desire to breathe air. Marlene wanted to breath this kiss for the rest of her life. His hands shifted from covering hers on the counter, sliding the length of her arms, one tangling in her curls and the other wrapping around her waist and pulling her into him. Marlene's grip shifted from the counter behind her to Sirius' hair, her nails dragging against his scalp. Sirius growled and shifted the kiss, pressing her against the counter as he increased their pace, his hands holding her tighter to him.
That was where her brain decided to catch up with her.
"Sirius." She broke their kiss, but her voice came out in a breathy moan that Sirius took as an invitation to move his lips to her neck.
Merlin and Morgana why did he choose to do this when her mother was waiting for her?
"Sirius." She tried again. "Let me get this platter to my mum and then we can find a better place to snog."
He grinned against her neck before nipping at the skin beneath her ear. "Afraid to get caught?"
"No, but if we get caught there's no way we'll be able to sneak away."
"Touché." He brought his lips back to hers in a slow slide. "Lead on."
Marlene didn't remember untangling herself from Sirius, or where her mother was when they dropped the platter with her. But she definitely remembered pulling Sirius into the green house at the back of the garden.
"I thought you didn't care for mistletoe." Sirius teased as he pulled her down to the bench in the back.
Marlene glanced up at the sprig hanging above the bench and laughed. She didn't know her parents put it up out here too.
"I never said I didn't like it, only that I don't need it's excuse."
Sirius cupped her face and smiled the brightest smile she'd ever seen on him. "I happen to be rather fond of the tradition."
Marlene snaked her hands around his neck and pulled him close. "Then per tradition, I think you have to kiss me."
