A Painted Ocean (Open!)

[Sirius Black]

The summer had vanished before his eyes, so quickly that he had really not been able to do some of the things he had wanted to. Sirius really could not recall a time he had ever been so busy; perhaps he would have been, during his school years, if he had taken them seriously, but now that he no longer had the option of blowing off his responsibilities, he had to succumb to the business of his schedule. It kind of sucked, to be honest, but hey, you had to grow up sometime, and when Sirius wasn't working or doing Order duties or being responsible, he was so preoccupied with not growing up and not acting his age, so that filled up his schedule pretty fully. And even though he had no school to return to, no real change coming with the fall months, he felt the boundaries of summer compressing in.

In one of the last weeks of the summer Sirius decided spontaneously he would at least cross one thing off the ole bucket list. That day he told his boss that he was not feeling well and would prefer to work from home (yeah, that whole responsibility thing? A tiger doesn't change his stripes...), and promptly hopped on his motorbike and embarked on an road trip. He had enchanted it to fly, but he had always preferred the muggle way if he had time to blow... not that he really understood muggle rules of the road, but that hadn't proven to be too much of an issue so far. And maybe he was a bit of a speed demon, but today he had no need to rush, and he'd be damned if he was going to let anything get in the way of his impromptu trip to the seaside. Eighteen years of life and he'd never been, but always wondered what it was like, and some unknown thing had convinced him today he should find out.

Sirius when he got on the bike didn't really know where he was going, but hell it was the ocean, how hard could it be to find? Turns out, it wasn't, and as soon as he saw the glimmer of water on the horizon he revved up the speed a little bit and tore up the road a bit to get there. He drove parallel to the shore for a while, just to put off stopping for the time being; over the roar of the engine the waves crashed onto the beach, spotted with families trying to cool off from the summer heat, and the air was heavy with moisture and the unmistakable smell of salt water, but he drove away from the crowded touristy areas until he found some section of beach mostly deserted. It was then he hopped off the bike, tapping it off with his wand, and left it parked so he could go wandering. He didn't go far, kicking off his shoes as he approached the water's edge, and he sat in the sand so that the tide stretched up to his feet. He looked into the boundless horizon for a moment before accepting that he was supposed to be at home working right now - so he pulled from his pocket a sheet of complex arithmetic calculations and a quill and continued where he'd left off. He thought he would be distracted, too distracted to work, but there was something about the atmosphere that made it easy to concentrate.

[Deleted]

School… School was over forever; Marlene could hardly even wrap her mind around the idea of never returning to Hogwarts. Conversations with her father before he died made Marlene to consider a teacher career. He had always told her that he wanted his daughter to have a safe job, a job where she could help others but be safe herself. Who knew maybe one day she would return to school to be a professor, but not yet. With everything going on in the world Marlene was going against her father’s wishes. The young blonde was going to join the Order… she was going to put herself in danger, she knew if her father was still alive he wouldn’t be happy with her decision but she couldn’t just sit by and watch everything going on in the world. She had to do something to help the world. She frowned thinking about it “Sorry Dad, but I can’t just sit by” a mumble left her lips as she looked through her closet for a bikini. Today she was going to take her mind off everything that was going on in the Wizarding world and take a mini vacation just for herself. She wanted to get away from her mother and her stepfather. A smile formed on her lips as she found the perfect one, maybe she would find a nice muggle man at the beach and have some fun.

Quickly she slipped off her cloths and slipped the bikini on, she glanced at herself in the mirror and titled her head to the side “Perfect” She grabbed a pair of wedges out of the closet and a tiny little sundress to put over her bathing suit. A tiny meow sounded from her bed and the young witch turned around “Diamond, if you want to go jump in the bag”. The little white cat sat there its head tilted to the side causing Marlene to shake her head. “You are the reason I get grey hair”. She walked over to the bed and placed Diamond in her beach bag “Try not to run away”. Quickly she grabbed the bag and her sunglasses off her nightstand “Off the some muggle beach, you excited?” a rhetorical question to the small cat, with that she closed her eyes and Apparated to the beach.

“I love being an adult” she squealed, she was now at the beach only seconds later. She was eighteen now, old enough to use magic outside school and old enough to Apparate. She quickly made her way to a less populated side of the beach and put her bag town. Her cat jumped out and Marlene grabbed her blanket, laying it out. It only took seconds before the cat was curled up taking a nap on the blanket soaking in the sunlight. “Time to get some color”. She slipped off her summer dress and laid down next to Diamond. It didn’t’ take long before she heard someone nearby. The blonde opened her eyes and lifted her sunglasses. “Sirius?” she said shocked that she saw someone from school here on a muggle beach.

Outfit

[Sirius Black]

Sirius had intentionally picked this spot, the least-populated little segment of sand he'd come across when driving along the shoreline. He knew himself well enough to know that being around people, even complete strangers, would be too much of a distraction, that he'd probably end up striking conversation with some vacationing family or chatting up some muggle girls. It was a stroke of responsibility that could be considered an accomplishment given who the subject was, but he never could have anticipated that he'd run into a classmate - former classmate - here, on a muggle beach. What were the odds? He hadn't even known where he was going, nor had he noticed her as he took a seat, which was extremely uncharacteristic of Sirius to not notice a pretty blonde in a bikini laying not too far from him. But his goal was to not be distracted, so in theory he was doing a fine job, until he heard his name coming from her direction.

Bewildered, Sirius looked up for the source of his name and quickly found her. "Marlene," he said, his mild surprise turning into a smile as he recognized her immediately. How could he not? They'd been at school together for seven years, same house, in fact, it was shocking he hadn't noticed her before. Well, there went any chance of getting anything accomplished in the foreseeable future. He crumpled up the parchment in a fist and tossed it a short distance into the waves. As it lightly hit the surface of the water, Sirius got to his feet and shortened the distance between himself and the other former Gryffindor. He went ahead and assumed she'd be up for catching up, after a summer apart and with no school on the horizon where there's a guarantee they'd see each other again, and if not, he could at least disturb her peace for a while.

"Looks like summer's done you well," Sirius greeted with the signature cheeky smile he'd been known for over the years, as he resumed his sitting position but beside Marlene instead. She definitely did look good, there was no denying that, and he would let her know that. "Why don't you sit up and give me a hug?" he asked with arms outstretched. Yeah, definitely not getting anything accomplished today.

[Deleted]

Marlene was happy to see someone she knew and actually really surprised. She had decided to go to a random beach and low and behold another person she knew. “I’d say the same to you but ever season is good on you” she giggled, Marlene was a hopeless flirt, she was pretty sure she would always flirt with guys… especially ones that were attractive. When he asked for a hug the petite blonde couldn’t refuse “Well if you’re begging for one” she joked. Propping herself up she earned a little growl from her white cat lying at her feet “Oh shush grump”. Leaning over she wrapped her arms around the Black boy.

“So how have you been keeping out of trouble this summer?” she knew that Sirius and his friends were always troublemakers, it was like they were attracted to it as if they were just magnets for any trouble in the castle. She still couldn’t believe that they weren’t going to be returning to Hogwarts “Can you believe we are done with school?”. It was now time to go into the real world, get real jobs, and grow up. Still something Lene wasn’t ready for, she was going to stay young and care free for as long as she could.

Although with the way the world was going she knew it wouldn’t be long, she had already joined the Order. She was going to do good in the world or die trying. She still knew that if her father was still alive he would have talked her out of joining… she used to listen to everything he said. “I for one can’t believe that it’s time to be in the real world…” she smirked and winked at him “I for one don’t want to grow up quite yet”. Marlene was known for partying up Hogwarts, only calming down slightly after her friends convinced her, her behavior was destructive and not something that her father would have wanted. Marlene was just lucky she hadn’t gotten pregnant or anything during her extremely wild time. She knew her reputation wasn’t the best around Hogwarts but now she was out of school and ready to start fresh.

[Sirius Black]

Sirius grinned at the compliment, as if he needed any more fuel to his ego, but he would welcome it anyway. He always liked finding a girl who would dish out flirtatious comments as much as he does, which ispart of the reason why he liked Marlene somuch and why he was so glad to see her now. Considering they'd spent the better part of the last seven years together, it was stranger being apart for so long, knowing they would not reunite again come September. "Whatever it takes to get just some attention from you," he said as he embraced her in return, momentarily confused as to who she was addressing with her last commentbefore he noticed the little cat resting near her feet. Did people normally bring their cats to the beach? As he released her heleaned back on his arms on towel beside her, inviting himself to stay, which seemed wise as she continued the conversation as if he wasn't going anywhere soon. Which he didn't plan to.

Apparently his school time reputation of trouble-making had not been forgotten, which was exactly his intent during his student years. "By not getting caught, of course," Sirius answered with a sly grin. The question reminded him of the little deception he had pulled in order to be here today, but it was harmless, and a perfect example of him avoiding trouble by not getting caught. Hopefully. "There's no one around to keep me in check anymore. Can't get in trouble if there are no rules to break!" The strict watchful eyes of the Hogwarts faculty was not something he would miss about the school - but then again, without them, he couldn't have caused such mayhem. It was a two-way street. But there are plenty of other things he would miss, and perhaps it hadn't sunken in yet, perhaps it still seemed like another summer off, but as weird as it felt not to be returning, he was perfectly okay with it.

"I believe it. It felt like ages at the time," Sirius answered, remembering how they had longed for summer those last few weeks of each year, how the classes just seemed to drag on, but looking back now the past seven years seem to have flown by. Funny how that works. Then again, his transition had been a bit more gradual than the others, many of whom ended school and then began life in the 'real world' as Marlene put it, whereas he moved out and found work before graduation. "Then don't," he matched her smirk with one of his own as she complained about having to grow up. "I didn't. Its better that way."