blackinnon micros june
fan @blackinnonmicros
Spending summer in the Valley of Brave Wallace was a true pleasure. Lush greenery surrounded them on all sides, and the ancient heather moorlands under the gentle Scottish sun seemed like an endless sea woven from shadows and light. Loch Lomond shimmered with a hazy mist, turning the distant hills into blurred watercolor patches, as if the world had been covered with a thin veil of memories.
Marlene, left to her own devices within the walls of the family cottage — since Grandmother Rose had successfully taken her younger sister and brother, Lizzie and Michael, for a walk — was enthusiastically rummaging through a huge carved chest that stood in the attic. Her fingers, sifting through layers of forgotten fabrics, suddenly came across something quite unusual — a fan.
But this was not an ordinary fan; it was a Venetian masterpiece: an elegant black lace, intertwined with ivory plates, with a thin inlay of mother-of-pearl shimmering along the edges. An antique item, probably belonging to her great-great-grandmother on her mother's side — the one who had lived during the reign of Queen Victoria and kept echoes of a bygone era in the folds of this fan.
Marlene went downstairs. She snapped open the clasp — and the fan unfurled like a leaf. Through the openwork patterns, her fingers were visible: long, tanned, with a delicate ring on her little finger. At that moment, Marlene caught herself thinking that she felt like a heroine from some novel — a languid lady in a crinoline, frozen in anticipation of a gentleman.
And as if reading her thoughts, the "gentleman" burst into the house without knocking. The sharp bang of the door made her start in surprise, and the uninvited guest froze on the threshold of the living room, like the very embodiment of suddenness and disrupted peace.
"What's this, McKinnon?" Sirius asked casually instead of a greeting, narrowing his eyes.
Well, well! He had finally deigned to respond to her invitation and had come. True, he hadn't thought to send Marlene an owl to let her know — he just appeared on the doorstep, disrupting the normal course of the day. But then again, why was she surprised? Such behavior was par for the course for Black.
Such antics invariably drove Marlene to fury. At moments like these, a strange, contradictory storm would rage inside her: she wanted either to throw something heavy at Sirius to bring his smugness down a peg, or to pull him close and kiss him, wiping that insolent smirk off his lips. Most often, she wanted to do both at once.
"Have you decided to become a socialite?" Black continued, his voice dripping with mocking irony.
He stepped closer, confidently intercepted her wrist, and raised the fan, examining its pattern. Sirius snorted, as if assessing the find with a degree of skepticism.
"I found it in my grandmother's chest," Marlene retorted, sharply pulling her hand away.
She snapped the fan shut right in front of his nose, and Sirius recoiled involuntarily, then sneezed loudly as a weightless cloud of dust rose from the black lace.
"Don't you dare laugh, Black," she added sternly. "Who knows, maybe there were ladies of the court in my family. Whereas you, right now, look exactly like a prim and arrogant aristocrat."
Sirius raised his eyebrows, feigning bewilderment, as if Marlene's words hadn't touched him at all. At that moment, a sunbeam, breaking through the windowpane, fell on his face, highlighting the mischievous, barely noticeable wrinkles around his eyes.
"Ooh, my hot Scottish blood," he drawled with mocking tenderness. "God, McKinnon, you don't even know how to hold a fan properly. Look, this is how you do it."
He deftly snatched the fan from her hands. With one sharp flick, Sirius opened it, held it to his face, and assumed such a tragic expression, as if he were dying of consumption. Marlene couldn't help but burst out laughing.
Sirius immediately closed the fan, tapped it against his palm, and, changing his voice to a squeaky, affected timbre, said:
"Oh, sir, you are far too bold! One cannot speak so loudly about the unimportance of blood purity! I shall faint!"
With these words, he dramatically collapsed onto the sofa, arms outstretched, and the fan, slipping from his fingers, glided smoothly to the floor.
Marlene, still laughing, bent down to pick up the fan. But Sirius beat her to it: he deftly scooped up the delicate object, smoothly lowered himself onto one knee, and, looking up at her with a sly half-smile, opened the fan before him. His pose was deliberately gallant, almost theatrical, but his gaze remained unexpectedly serious.
For a moment, a pause hung in the room, and then Sirius said in his normal tone:
"But seriously, McKinnon, this persona suits you. Just don't wave it around too vigorously — the wind in Scotland is strong enough as it is; it might blow away whatever common sense we have left."
Marlene sharply snatched the fan and cuffed Sirius on the back of the head. However, he instantly caught her by the waist, not letting her pull away. Slowly, without breaking eye contact, Sirius rose to his full height, smoothly pulling Marlene against him. The lace of the fan was trapped between their bodies, like a prisoner caught in the trap of their suddenly intensified feelings.
"You're insufferable," Marlene sighed, involuntarily biting her lip.
"And you're not very hospitable," Sirius retorted defiantly, tilting his head slightly. "You didn't even offer me a bite to eat after my journey. What's up with that, Marls?"
Marlene rolled her eyes. It was true what they said: cheek is a second happiness. Noticing her reaction, Sirius didn't wait for a tirade of angry comments. His gaze lingered on her lips for a moment, and then he pulled Marlene closer and, covering her lips with his, made her forget everything in the world. The fan slipped from her weakened fingers and floated gently down onto the fluffy rug, where it remained until evening. For the lovers had no time for antique accessories that day — not in the Valley of Wallace, nor in all of Scotland, bathed in the warm light of the setting sun.
