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The Art of Breathing. by AC_rules
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Format: Novel
Chapters: 45
Word Count: 386,117
Status: COMPLETED

Rating: Mature
Warnings: Strong Language, Strong Violence, Scenes of a Sexual Nature, Substance Use or Abuse, Sensitive Topic/Issue/Theme

Genres: Romance, Angst, Young Adult
Characters: Lupin, Sirius, A. Longbottom, F. Longbottom, Lily, James, Pettigrew, OC
Pairings: Sirius/OC, James/Lily, Snape/Lily, Remus/OC, Other Pairing

First Published: 12/12/2008
Last Chapter: 10/02/2012
Last Updated: 10/02/2012

Summary:
Banner Les.Miserables @ TDA



I’m going to die.
And not even in the ‘can’t believe current situation with Sirius Black’ or ‘blackmail coming from all sides’ or ‘evil step mother’ this-is-so-bad-going-to-die sense.

I mean an actual physical, literal ending sort of death.

Dobby finalist 2009, nominee 2011 & 2012. TGS finalist 2012

Chapter 24: Clash.
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A/N -  This chapter is now officialy beta'd :)

The one year anniversary of this story (as in when I actually first started writing it) is on Christmas day so I wanted to get chapter 25 up by then, but life had other ideas. It's good though. I'm really amazed how far this story has come and it's all because of you guys reviewing and reading that I've improved so much. You all make me so happy and I'm going to answer all your reviews over the holidays (I need something to sustain me, why do you think I started such a depressing story on Christmas day?) as well as writing lots of chapters in advance. This is your christmas present from me, even if it isn't all that great. In the spirit of giving anc Christmas, it would be FANTASTIC for you to give me a present back in the form of a lovely review? Yes? I hope you'll do that for me. I actually love you all, HAPPY CHRISTMAS GUYS :D


I’d never really thought about how lonely and depressing it was to sleep alone. To be curled up in a bed with nothing but the freezing sheets. When you share a bed with someone there’s always another presence which makes you feel less alone – plus the warmth of body heat and skin contact were the things humans thrived on (quite literally of course). I just felt crap to be in my bed tonight, shivering despite my fleece pyjamas and blanket with no one to talk too.

It didn’t help that I was in one of those moods where everything was building on top of me and it was impossible to sleep.

Everyone was mad at me. Becky was coming to Hogwarts. Snape knew my secret. I was going to die.

Although, being curled up against the freezing sheets was doing one good thing; I could understand why Dad remarried. Imagining sharing a bed with someone for so long – knowing all their sleeping habits and being so used to hearing them breathing and their warmth, and then suddenly they’re gone. Back to a cold, empty, far too large double bed with no one to comfort you when you cry.

I pulled myself out of bed and sniffed attractively (or maybe not), wiping some of the tears from my face as I drew back the curtains. It was even colder out of my sheets and I wrapped my arms around myself as tightly as I could and hobbled down the stairs, still crying.

I realised how pathetic I must look as I made my way down the stairs, but I had other things on my mind and didn’t much care.

I don’t know what I was expecting – not many people are in the Common room at three in the morning, but still it came as a shock to me that no one was there. I’d never seen it look so empty and large, but then thinking about it, it had to hold a lot of people – I’d just never really thought about it before.  

Another sob racked through my body as I thought that next year there’d be one less person in our group and wondered how they’d react to that. I shook myself wearily. I needed to talk to someone before I went into self-destruct mode, which had many bad consequences (including mental break downs, sleeping for days, losing control and blurting things out). Nate was too far away and I didn’t fancy walking around the school in my Pyjamas much. Before I’d even thought about it I’d made my decision and started heading up the boys stairs tentatively.

How would I know which one the sixth years would be in? I stopped to think, glancing at each door carefully and seeing no way to identify them. On the sixth landing I stopped and looked at the door to find that they’d done half the work for me, by putting some cryptic message on the doorway which was too dark to read – but they had put their names under this and, breathing a sigh of relief, I pushed open the door.

There were five beds inside, and it took me a moment to remember Frank also shared this dorm, and then I realised I had yet another problem – I didn’t know which was Sirius’s bed. The whole thing was stupid anyway, and I decided to leave and go back to bed – or maybe have a shower.
“Mary...” a voice whispered and I turned around startled. “Don’t go Mary,” the voice said, and I recognised it to be Sirius’s almost immediately (well done Mary McDonald, welcome to the society of pathetic creeps.) “The dog brothel isn’t a safe place to go...” he muttered, and for a minute I wondered if he was insulting the girls in my dorm (by calling them both bitches and prostitutes?) when I realised he was dreaming. I smiled at the bizarreness, but at least I knew which bed it was now.

I pulled back the drapes and watched him sleeping for a moment. He looked more peaceful than I’d seen him do for a long time – his hair was splayed out underneath his head and there was a small smile on his features. I almost felt bad for waking him. A nice person would just leave and go back to bed.

We all know I’m a selfish bitch.

“Sirius,” I muttered, sitting on the edge of his bed and poking him.  He turned over and away from me and swatted my hand away. “Sirius!” I exclaimed, and shook him. He grunted and shook himself before opening his eyes groggily and sitting up. Seeing him awake made me burst into tears again. Our previous conversation was still fresh in my mind and I really didn’t want to think about it.

“Hey, hey!” Sirius said soothingly, jumping to attention, which only made me cry harder. “What’s up?” he asked with more tenderness than I thought he was capable of.

“Dream,” I muttered as he stroked my hair. “It was... bad.” That was all I could bring myself to say.

I shuddered.

Dad had died in an accident, then Becky killed herself, Karen left and I had to drop out of Hogwarts to look after Ria and Johnny. Then I came back to visit everyone, and no one had noticed I was gone.

“It’s not real,” Sirius said shaking his head. He bent down and stuck his hand under his bed and presented me with a bottle. “This’ll warm you up,” he said, pulling out another and a bottle opener, removing the cap expertly.

“Is it alcoholic?” I asked warily – the Marauders didn’t have a reputation for nothing.

“Not enough to have any effect, unless you drink the whole stash.”

“So you’re not trying to get me to pass out with drunkenness and take advantage?” I questioned, and he laughed.

“It’s you who takes the advantage if you remember,” Sirius retorted, and I smiled back. “Coming to find me in the middle of the night to take advantage of my good nature?”

“‘Good’ nature?” I questioned, complete with air quotes.

“I can tell you’re tired – you can do better than that,” Sirius said, laughing slightly as he took a sip from his bottle. I followed his lead and found the liquid had just the warming effect Sirius had promised, rather like butter beer. I curled my legs up and wiped away another tear from my face.

“It was cold, in bed all on my own,” I said, looking down at my feet and curling up against his shoulder.

“Nice pyjamas,” Sirius commented, taking in my fleece attire (complete with teddy bear patterns).

“Shut up,” I muttered.

“They’re sweet,” Sirius said, smiling. “Little different to the last pyjamas I saw you in.”

“Oh yes,” I said, remembering that unfortunate incident with the nautical pyjamas. “Well it’s a bit colder now.”

“Quite,” Sirius agreed, when I realised he slept topless. Bloody hell. What if he slept naked? That would have been a bit of a shock for me.

“I prefer these though,” he said, running his hand down the material covering my arms. “They suit you more. Plus they only make me want to kiss you.”

“Really, these do it for you?” I asked, looking down at them. They were hardly attractive, let’s be honest. They covered my so called ‘figure’ magnificently, and managed to cover up pretty much all my flesh. They were warm though, and it was late November, so I hardly cared.

“Well, the others were a little more... risqué. I don’t like myself thinking like that about you though; these are a much safer option. And Mary dear, haven’t you worked out by now that anything you wear does it for me?”

“How corny,” I commented dryly, and he saluted.

“Mr Cheese at your service.”

“I thought that was Peter?”

“You don’t know how right you are,” Sirius said, smiling to himself. “Anyway, I’m not sure I would have been able to control myself if you came to me in the middle of the night wearing those other pyjamas.”

“Yet you’re allowed to sleep topless?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Noticed did you?” Sirius smirked.

“It’s dreadfully unfair,” I added. “What if I wanted to sleep topless?”

“By all means, go ahead,” Sirius said, and I smacked him playfully. “You feeling a little better?” he asked, and I nodded and smiled up to him, taking another sip from the bottle. “Much thanks.”

“Can I check to see if your leg’s better?” Sirius asked, rolling up the bottom of my pyjama bottoms.

“No! I still haven’t shaved my legs,” I told him, and he just smirked, running his hand up my leg.

“If it makes you feel better, I didn’t shave today.” I reached up and brushed my hand across his cheek. It was quite rough under my fingertips, but not half as bad as I knew my legs to be.

“My legs fine – Nate checked it,” I said, rolling down my pyjama bottoms again. Sirius hand stayed on my leg, resting on my fleece pyjama’s like it was as natural as anything. I wanted to push his hand off, but at the same time wanted nothing more than to let it rest there. It wasn’t doing any harm! It was just there; a warm weight, a presence.

“You don’t believe me though,” Sirius said, after a few moments of silence (in which I looked at his hand where it rested on my leg for an awfully long time). “When I say you look good in anything, you don’t believe me.” He continued his gaze, soft and appraising.

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because you trust me,” Sirius countered. “You just don’t take compliments about yourself seriously. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you I was crazy about you, for example.”

I didn’t say anything.

“And you wouldn’t believe me if I told you that I’d never been so -”

“Then why are you mad at me?” I burst out suddenly, surprising myself. “How is any of that supposed to be true when you yell at me, and you said those things, and you got mad at me even when I only did it because I care about you and I was worried? I just wanted to understand! Is that so bad? You were upset and I didn’t know how to make it better! And you’re still annoyed at me even though you did the same thing yourself.”

Sirius was biting back an argument, I could tell, but he didn’t say anything.

He moved his hand off my leg.

“You’re annoyed at me too,” Sirius retorted.

“Only because you’re a hypocrite!” I exclaimed. “And I don’t believe you, because you don’t make sense and you’re always angry at me and you could have any girl and it’s not like I’m -”

“Shsshhh,” Sirius whispered, shaking his head. He put his hands on my shoulders to make me look at him. “All of that is bollocks. None of them have a patch on you, and they only want me because they have this idea of me, and that’s bullocks too. You’re the only girl to understand me, including my mother.”

“Precisely!” I wailed. “Some other, better, girl is going to come along and understand you and then you won’t care about me -”

“Rubbish,” Sirius said, shaking his head. “No one could take your place.”

Then a wave of guilt hit my stomach. I had to be replaced. Sirius couldn’t be alone for the rest of my life because of me. I couldn’t let this happen. What if we got in too deep, and then I died, leaving him here alone?

“Tell me about your family Sirius.” I said, realising for the first time that we’d scooted closer so that our foreheads were resting on each other as we spoke. It was stupid considering how I’d been hyper aware of his hand, yet had barely noticed our whole bodies getting closer together.

“Not much to tell – they’re bastards really.”

“How did they treat you?” I asked softly, and he sighed. “Did they hit you?” I implored, and Sirius shrugged.

“Not much, before,” Sirius admitted. “Then when I was sorted into Gryffindor – they weren’t exactly happy about that,” he muttered bitterly, his voice filling the spaces in the room, and it seemed as though it was difficult for him to talk about it. “Then it got a bit worse,” he added slowly. “Because I was a ‘traitor.’ Reg is all right, we talk sometimes I guess, I worry about him.”

“Yeah,” I said, closing my eyes for a second. “He’s a death eater,” I said, and Sirius moved away from me and took another drink from his half full bottle.

“He’s misguided, but yes, you would have heard about that,” he said, and his voice was bitter for a second. “Let’s forget about that for now yeah?” he asked, talking more to himself than anyone else. “I never really liked it though...” he continued. “Well,” he said softly, so quietly it was unreal. “I liked being the centre of attention,” he said so that I was the only one who could have possibly heard, even if everyone in the dorm were wide awake and eavesdropping (which was fully plausible).

“I loved being doted on, and being special, and being better than everyone else. Then I realised there was nothing that special about me, because there were all these others just like me. So I thought I’d do something so outlandish and shocking that I’d be even more special.”

He took another gulp of his drink and shuddered. “I didn’t believe in all that pureblood crap anyway, but I didn’t count on everyone stopping loving me after I asked the hat to put me in Gryffindor, which it said it would have done anyway, but it was a bit of a shock. I expected people to love me at that point. Regulus was in his element, loving being the one with the power all of a sudden. I got over it though,” he muttered, and it sounded very much like he hadn’t at all. “You learn to deal,” Sirius muttered, and I moved closer to him and shuddered in the cold. “That’s more or less why James and I clicked – we were both used to being utterly adored, and coming to Hogwarts was a bit of a shock.”

Sirius reached out and rubbed something off my face with his thumb.

“Your mascara,” he said and I smiled, resting my head on his chest. “Your turn,” Sirius told me, and I made no effort to move. “Tell me about your Mum and Becky,” he said, and I sighed. Sirius ran a hand up my back and stopped when he reached my shoulders.

“Bloody hell, how tense are your shoulders, Mary?” Sirius asked, and I shrugged. “Turn,” he ordered, and I obediently shifted my body.

“You’re giving me a shoulder massage?” I questioned incredulously, as he ran his hands over my shoulders.

“What’s so surprising about that?”

“It’s just so unlikely. This whole situation –me coming into your room in the middle of the night in tears, you sitting me down and chatting to me, telling me your life story? Now you’re giving me a shoulder massage – which you’re really good at by the way – when we’ve just had the argument to end all arguments, we’re still mad at each other, and you’re a womanizing twat,” I said, and he laughed slightly, running his fingers over my ‘tense’ shoulders. He ran his hands down my back as part of his whole massage thing, which felt positively divine.

“How are you doing this?” I asked, and I could practically see his smirk.

“Mary, you’re not wearing a bra,” Sirius said suddenly, and my eyes widened as I realised I really wasn’t – I generally didn’t when sleeping.

“Ermmmm... no. Because I was in bed, and who really wants a piece of wire sticking into their flesh when they sleep? Plus, I didn’t expect anyone to see me.”

“Fair point,” Sirius commented, but his voice really wasn’t the same as normal. My shoulders tensed up again. “You need to relax,” Sirius said, regaining composure slightly.

“Speaking of your womanizing tendencies, I’m quite proud of you,” I said, looking back up at him. “And maybe a little disappointed.”

“Why?”

“I come here in my pyjamas in the middle of the night asking for comfort – and you haven’t even tried to kiss me. This proves my point about why I don’t believe any of what you said: if you were really that attracted to me I’d be slapping your hands off me.”

“Or maybe I’m sensible enough to know you won’t stand for any of that crap, and crazy enough about you that I’m exercising extreme amounts self-control, and respecting you instead of just chasing after cheap thrills.”

“How sweet,” I said scathingly.

“That’s me,” Sirius added, and I sighed.  We were silent for a few moments.

“I’ve been attempting to use you again, haven’t I?” I admitted slowly, and he nodded.

“Quite offensive really,” he said, half joking, half serious. “That it’s the only way I can make you feel better.”

“It’s not that.”

“Do you honestly think I would have held out from kissing you for this long if I hadn’t thought you were using me again? It’s your trademark thing. You were still doing it the other day too, even if you didn’t realise,” he said bitterly. “That’s part of what this whole damn argument is about. You’ve made it clear to me that you don’t -”

“Sirius! I don’t mean to!”

“Of course you don’t,” Sirius muttered, getting up and pulling on an old t-shirt from his trunk. “Of course you don’t mean too – it’s completely an accident, it’s not like you can help the fact that the only reason you’re here is -”

“Don’t judge me!” I snapped, and he laughed humourlessly.

“Because you’ve never judged me? And despite your really flattering opinion of me – I’ve got a girlfriend and I’m not going to cheat on her for you,” he snapped, and it was just at that moment that James, Remus and Peter came into the dorm chatting and laughing, but I barely noticed them.

“So you don’t think saying all that stuff is the same as cheating on her?” I snapped back. “You don’t think that it’s maybe a little harsh on her to be using her like that? Yet you’re getting all up on your morals when it suits you? I don’t believe a word of it.”

“God,” James said, his eyebrows rising, as he looked from me sitting on Sirius’s bed to Sirius standing in the centre of the room looking pissed. “Seems like we were the ones missing out.”

“We couldn’t wake you up,” Pete added in explanation. “We went out,” he added unnecessarily.

“Right,” Sirius muttered, picking up his bottle from the bedside table and taking another drink.

“You couldn’t wake him?” I questioned without really meaning to – I hadn’t found it overly difficult.

“Well, we didn’t try that hard,” James said, ripping the curtains back from his bed and collapsing onto it still fully dressed. “By all means, carry on with your argument,” James grinned. “But first, can you tell us how this came to occur – it’ll be easier for us to follow and laugh.”

“Yeah, that’s charming. Laughing at other people’s expense,” I commented dryly. “I’m going now.”

“At last,” Sirius added. “Off you go then,” he said, his voice dropping to a patronizing tone that made me want to hit him. He waved me away with his hand.

I collected myself, fighting back the anger I felt.

“Can I talk to you for a minute, outside?” I asked, as the others watched us carefully.

“Ah... no.” He smirked. “Anything you want to say, you can say in front of all off them.”

“Forget it,” I sighed, feeling tears spring up in my eyes again. I took one last glance at him before walking out of the boys’ room. I figured Sirius would see the defeated expression on my face and would follow immediately, but I no longer wanted to talk to him. Coming here had been a big mistake. Reality had come crashing back down when the others had entered the room, and it was time for me to deal with reality instead of living in some fantasy land. I couldn’t do this to Sirius. I couldn’t do it to myself.

“Mary, what is it?” Sirius asked, slipping out of the room and shutting the door.

“I was being stupid, it doesn’t matter,” I told him, shaking my head and running my fingers through my hair. Becky was coming to Hogwarts. She’d tried to kill herself. She’d sent me her suicide note, and I hadn’t cared enough to read it.

“Tell me,” Sirius implored, brushing a lock of hair from my face with his hand. I pushed his hand away and it dropped to his side awkwardly. She’d been picking up the packet of pills and her delicate mouth had been swallowing them one by one, and I’d been sitting in class arguing with Sirius.

In five months time I was going to be locked away in a coffin. Cold. Dead.

Then what would Sirius do? Becky? Dad? Lily?

“You can’t keep acting like that!” I exclaimed, feeling my whole body shake with emotions that even I didn’t understand. “You can’t keep acting like everything’s the same when it’s all different. We can’t pretend that we haven’t hurt each other and that we haven’t said all these stupid things because it’s not going to work. This needs to stop. Don’t interrupt me!” I snapped as he began to open his mouth. “We already said this thing is over, and that we’re through. I shouldn’t have come tonight, and I’m sorry. I just needed someone to talk to, and you were the first person I thought of. That has to stop. We don’t talk to each other. You talk to James; I talk to Nate or the girls.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This, ending,” I clenched my fists at his sides and tried not to see his expression.  There were too many complications and other obligations.

“We never even got started,” Sirius protested.

“That’s the point! Look how much pressure and stress we’ve put ourselves under. Everyone’s ignoring us and we’re just getting at each other’s throats. It’s not making us happy, so we need to stop it before everything goes to shit.”

“No! I’m not going to listen to this crap!”

“But it’s not crap. You know it makes sense. We’d never work together. We’re too dysfunctional and we’re just getting ourselves into this big mess. From now on, I’m dead to you,” my heart stopped for a second as I said those words, and it took me a moment before I was able to continue. “I’m just some girl you sit next to in class. That’s all.”

“No,” Sirius said simply, shaking his head.

“Yes,” I replied, shaking mine. “It will better for both of us.”

“Stop spouting all this crap! Next thing you’ll be saying ‘it’s not you it’s me’ or some crap about still being friends.”

“But I’m not. It’s you AND me. We’re both the problem and I’ve said we can’t be friends.”

“This is the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard!” Sirius exclaimed angrily. “How can you say all this so calmly and matter of factly when just ten minutes ago I was telling you things I’d never dream of telling anyone else! And no, it’s not over. Nothing’s over. How can anything be over when nothings even happened? It can’t and it’s not, in any way, over.”

“But it has to be!”

“Is that what you really want?”

No.

“Do you really want us to forget we were ever even friends?”

No.

“Yes,” I muttered weekly.

“It’s a good job I don’t listen to any of your crap,” Sirius said, pacing down the corridor. “Because I know you too well for you to do this to me.”

“I may not want it, but I need it to be like this, and you do too!”

“Why, because it’s more sensible? Live a little Mary and grow a fucking backbone. Now piss the hell off, I can’t stand to listen to another word of this.”

“It’s over,” I spat angrily.

“No,” Sirius snapped back.

“Yes.”

“This stupid argument is ending right now.”

“You’re dating Amanda if you remember Sirius.”

“Jealous?”

“Grow up,” I shot back at him angrily.

There was movement in the dormitory upstairs and I realised all of the Marauders, plus anyone trying to listen had probably heard every single word.

“You’re not worth the effort,” Sirius finished, shutting the door of his dorm behind me. I stood there for a moment, collecting myself. It was for the best. I crept quickly down the stairs in the fear that someone would come out and everyone would be looking at me.

***********************

I hurried up the girls stairs and fell into our dormitory. I took a deep breath and walked back to my bed, which looked even more lonely and depressing than it had before. I was a mess, and fully aware of it. My hair was beyond a mess and it was clear that I couldn’t work the old I’ve-just-fallen-out-of-bed look. Then the remains of yesterday’s makeup had spread itself all over my face, making me look even more tired than I actually was.

Sirius had pretty much told me that he was attracted to me when I looked like this.

Obviously he’d been lying, but it had still been nice.

“Mary,” Lily said from her bed, and I jumped.

“You scared me! I didn’t realise anyone was up,” I said, looking at her and seeing she’d been crying again. A wave of sympathy flooded through me, but I didn’t know what I could do to help. In the past I would have known just what to do and say, but both of us had been growing so much recently and neither of us knew the other anymore. She looked at me for a second, and I looked straight back. Did I regret changing? Did I regret pulling our friendship to its limit?

No. Not really, because I needed the space to grow and learn. I needed to sort things out in my head, and despite everything I was definitely more in touch with my emotions these days. I had needed that time to be independent, probably at the exact time she had needed to rely on me. We’d let each other down.

We’d been looking at each other for a long time when she dropped her gaze to her feet and began to speak.

“I’ve got it worked out in my head now, and I’m all right with you and Sirius.”

She looked more vulnerable than I’d seen her in a very long time in her thick pyjamas and with her hair hanging loose around her face.

“Sorry?” I asked slowly, still standing in the doorway as if frozen. Her sentence hung around the common room heavily, and she seemed to regret opening her mouth.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, shaking her head and wiping a stray tear from her face.

“Yes it does,” I told her, walking over to her bed and placing myself down on the edge of it.

 “I guess I’ve been really...worried about it.  It’s stupid and selfish,” she said, stopping and looking up at me with her big green eyes. “I thought if you guys dated I’d see you even less than before,” she took a breath and began to speak really quickly. “So I’ve been doing all these stupid things that you haven’t even noticed – but it didn’t work! Then I thought that if I could get a boyfriend too then it’ll be all right, because then I wouldn’t be the only single one of the group! So I’ve been trying to get James to ask me out like he used to. Then he did and I was so annoyed at myself, because I don’t like James! He annoys the hell out of me, and I can’t STAND him. It pains me to spend too much time with him, but I’ve been throwing myself in his company and acting like I like him when there’s no one else there and... I’m such an idiot Mary!”

“Shush,” I told her, pulling her into a hug as I tried to comprehend all of it. I’d noticed she was off recently, but I hadn’t realised why. I guess I’d thought she fancied James at least, but it didn’t seem like that anymore. I’d never expected something like this from Lily, especially over a relationship as dysfunctional and frustrating as mine and Sirius’s.

“It made me miss Remus so much,” Alice piped up, her voice cracking. She pulled back the hangings from her bed and came and sat down on Lily’s. “Because you guys were being so...”

“You just kept looking at each other, and we all knew that you’d be together soon,” Lily sniffed. “And I didn’t know what to do! I didn’t want to be the only single one left, the desperately, lonely one.”

“I just wanted to be back with someone I really cared about.”

“But it’s not like that!” I exclaimed, my own voice breaking. “He’s got a girlfriend!” I wailed, sounding more than a little pathetic.  “And I just made him agree that we’re through.”

Then we were all crying on each other and bursting words of sympathy and comfort in between sobs. “Mike is an arsehole and I can’t stand him!” Alice wailed, and we held her tighter.

“Amanda is fucking perfect,” I cried.

“I hate being single,” Lily sobbed, and it continued. A mix of sobbing, confiding and crying. It felt like we’d finally all connected together for the first time in ages and I was so glad that I was no longer in this alone. To really let everything out on someone who wasn’t Sirius was much more relieving and refreshing than I’d remembered it to be, and I felt like another great big load had been lifted from my shoulders.

“I’m sorry for ignoring you,” I blubbered into their arms.

“I’m sorry for being a pain, and having Mike around all time,” Alice cried.

“I’m sorry for being such a b...b...bitch!” Lily whimpered.

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a crap friend and told Sirius your secrets.”

“I’m sorry for not...” Alice began, but by then we’d all dissolved back into renewed sobs.

*******************

“You guys need to get yourselves a date for Hogsmeade on Saturday!” Alice exclaimed once we’d all stopped crying several hours later. It felt a little weird to have had such a girly, close, moment like that. It wasn’t something I was used to, and it wasn’t something I planned to make a habit of either.

“No,” I protested, shaking my head and wiping my face clear of the trails of mascara. “I refuse. I can just go with Lily,” I said, and Lily shook her head slowly.

“I have a date,” she said carefully, and we looked over at her in shock. She didn’t seem remotely pleased by the idea.

She bit her lip and looked at us carefully, and then looked back at her feet and her hair fell in front of her face, which covered her expression. “I didn’t mean to,” she said, her eyes cast downwards. “I just accidently said yes,” she said, shaking herself. “I don’t know what I’m going to do!”

“Who?” I asked slowly, even though I had an inkling already.

“I said yes to James.”



 A/N - Yes. Another cliff hanger. My bad. I hope this hasn't put you off reviewing? I know it's a bit fillery, but the wait was SOOO short? Convinced? I hope so. All my loveeeeeeee
AC xxx
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