Arianna Black walked through the barrier onto Platform 9 ¾ with her two brothers. Regulus immediately headed off towards his Slytherin friends but Arianna and Sirius walked together towards a compartment. She could tell that Sirius’s mood was improving with every step he took. He was back at school, he was back in his element now.

The next few weeks went by without much drama, thank God. Arianna had been keeping her eyes open for any of Sirius’s bullying on Snape. So far, Sirius had hexed him in the hallway and that was about it. Her brother was making progress.

Sirius deposited Arianna roughly in a chair in the common room and took one across from her. He stared at her as he took deep breaths. “Well?” he demanded. “Do you want to try and explain yourself?”
 
 

“Well Sirius,” Dumbledore said taking a seat behind his desk and staring intently at him. “I suppose you have a reason to justify what you just did?”

As Arianna finally took her seat in the Great Hall, dinner was practically over. “Hey Ari, where have you been?” James asked as she sat down and started putting food on her plate.

She walked into the room and Severus looked up in surprise. “What? Didn’t think I would come?” Arianna asked, slightly cross at him already.

“The thought did cross my mind.” He replied, in a soft, calm voice.

She rolled my eyes. “So what now? You’re gonna make me shine your boots or what? Make me your slave for the night?” Arianna wasn’t going to humiliate herself for Severus’s pleasure. She had more pride than that. She was a Black for goodness's sake.

“Honestly Ari, you’re so naive.” He patted her head and she smacked his hand. “Don’t you know anything?” She smacked at him again.

“Children, no fighting in the hallway.” A cold voice said. They both turned and saw Snape standing there smirking. “Ten points from Gryffindor, apiece.”

Other than the fact that Sirius was now clenching his jaw, he gave no other indication that he had heard what Snape had said to them.

Because that kiss with Severus could ruin the slightly unsteady normality of her life. True, her life wasn’t exactly perfect, but it worked. If that kiss with Severus meant anything more than just an innocent kiss, all that normality was about to crash down upon her ears. For one thing, Sirius would kill Severus. Second, he would probably never speak to her again. And third, she would probably lose Remus as a friend.

“Is this seat taken?”

She looked up and her mouth dropped open a little and the quill fell from her hand. “Actually…yes.” She said, stumbling over her words. How had he found her here?

He smirked at her. “Somehow I don’t think that’s the truth.” He said lightly, “You know, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you alone all week. Dear old brother has been keeping a pretty tight watch on you, huh?”

“No, it’s okay, I’m just gonna walk around the grounds or something.” She protested.

“I wouldn’t let you do that alone even if you didn’t have Snape as a creepy stalker.” Sirius said and James snorted.

Arianna rolled her eyes. “He’s not a stalker.”

“Honestly Arianna, we see him eyeballing you all the time.” Peter piped in. She raised her eyebrows in disbelief. Sirius sighed and took her arm to guide her out the door.

“Do what?” He asked innocently, pretending to examine the book full of passages that they were supposed to be copying down.

“Do what?! Lift me up in the middle of the hallway! Honestly, I haven’t even talked to you in days and you all of a sudden-” Arianna started ranting when she realized that Snape was just raising his eyebrows.

“Well that was kind of the point, wasn’t it?” He remarked. “You answered your own question.”

“Its….well it just might be the best for everyone if you hurried on up to bed now.” Lily said, making sure to keep her voice down. “I don’t think you’re going to like what they have to say to you.”

Arianna got slowly to her feet. “Okay, if you say so.” She paused for a second, trying to read the look on Lily’s face.

“Hold it right there, Arianna.” Sirius said from behind her. She froze and turned on the spot to look at him. Her brother looked furious.

She gave the crowd a feeble smile. She saw the whispers start.Sirius’s eyes met hers for the briefest of seconds before he turned away like he hadn’t seen her standing there. Arianna’s smile wobbled, threatening to fall.

Remus wasn’t looking her, he was purposely laughing too loudly at the jokes that James was telling loudly. Lily was looking at her feet. Peter was the only one who was looking at her, and he looked like he was laughing at her.

“Remus, I never meant to hurt you.” She said quietly. “I didn’t…still don’t actually, understand what’s going on. All my emotions are mixed up. I wanted to like you the way that you liked me.” She stumbled over her words, at least he was looking at her now. “I really wanted to like you. It’s not that I was trying to lead you on or give you false hope, I really was trying to convince myself that it was you that I wanted to be with. I wanted it to be you.” She whispered.

“He wants to be your boyfriend though.” Severus went on.

“I thought you wanted to be my boyfriend.” She said quietly, looking away from him. He looked at her in surprise. They had never said that word before. “Whatever Sev, Remus is one of the few people who is trying to accept us. He may not like it, but he’s trying. Which is more than I can say for a lot of people. So instead of getting jealous over something that didn’t mean anything at all, you should be grateful to him.”

She smiled to herself as she thought about her day earlier. She had braved the Slytherin table so that she could eat with Severus. His choice of friends was not exactly her idea of fun, but she supposed that he would say the same thing about hers.

He stormed into his own dormitory, conjuring pillows out of thin air as he muttered under his breath. The rest of the boys came into the room shortly after that. Arianna was too afraid to ask anything when Sirius was in a rage like this. She was almost glad that she hadn’t seen his bad moods when he wasn’t speaking to her. She knew that he had been furious about the Snape thing.