'Hate is often an obverse form of love. You hate someone whom you really wish to love but whom you cannot love." - Sri Chinmoy

Fights

Of all the boys in Gryffindor, Helen liked Remus the best and, not surprisingly, Sirius the worst. She didn't mind Peter- he seemed nice enough- but he always stammered far too much whenever she spoke to him, making it rather difficult for her to ever have a conversation with him.

James she liked from a distance. Lily hated him with a vengeance- though this was mainly because he had swooped upon her in their first flying class, nearly causing her to slip off her broom. James maintained that he would have been able to catch her, though Lily wouldn't hear it and was absolutely convinced that if there was one universal truth, it was that James Potter was 'the most egotistical, fat-headed, arrogant berk' she had ever met.

Helen, on the other hand, had grown up with an older brother and thus understood boys a little bit better, she liked to think, than Lily did- who had only had a prudish older sister for company. She understood that James acted aloof towards her- and all the other girls- not because he was 'fat-headed', as Lily explained it, but because he was a boy and trying to keep up appearances. Being called a 'sissy-boy' would just not do for a boy like James and, although it annoyed her, she could forgive this in Jams because, when he wasn't with everyone else, he was funny and mischievous, without being too mean.

There was always a certain warmth about him, no matter what he was doing.

Sirius, on the other hand, was another story. He was cold, but this wasn't a façade- he always seemed it. He would always drawl in his sarcastic voice- even when talking to James or Remus, who were meant to be his friends. He was the worst to Peter whom he'd always taunt about being 'stupid' and not knowing which end of the broomstick was what.

And this kind of behaviour could not be excused by his merely being a 'boy'. When he wasn't talking with James or the other boys, his grey eyes would become hard and he would stare into the distance, seemingly lost in thought.

His sense of humour was much drier as well. His idea of fun was harassing other students, particularly the Slytherins… and her, for some reason.

---

One day, Helen and Remus were studying together in the library, as they usually did in their spare time. Engrossed in her work, Helen did not notice anything until she felt something oozing down the skin of her back.

She stood up suddenly.

'Remus! What is it? What's down my back?' she asked frantically, squirming as the thing oozed further down her back.

'How did that get there?' Remus asked, puzzled, as he reached down her the back of her shirt and pulling out a slug.

Helen looked at it, horrified but then whirled around suddenly as she heard Sirius Black whistling at Remus.

'Nice going, Remus. You're already down her shirt! Imagine, it won't be too long before you're down her pa…ARGH!'

Helen, livid at his comment, for making Remus stick his hand down her shirt, and for the his existence in general, shot a strong, thick stream of water into his mouth which had been bragging and smirking at her.

He gagged, trying to cover himself from the water which Helen still kept flowing.

'WATER? DUELLING IN MY LIBRARY? GET OUT! DETENTION!' Madam Pince screamed, grabbing both Helen and Sirius from the scruff of their necks and throwing them out of the library where they fell on the floor.

Sirius spluttered, still trying to breathe properly. Helen smiled grimly and made to walk away but Remus, worried for his friend, called her back.

'Helen! He's turning red!'

Helen rolled her eyes, not really worried, but then glanced at Sirius and saw that his normally-pale face was now, indeed, ruby red.

And as much as she hated him, she didn't want to be the one responsible for his death. 'Can't…breathe…' Sirius choked.

Even though she'd been on the receiving end of it, Helen reallly didn't really have any idea of how to administer CPR. Nonetheless, she did the best she could by pumping Sirius' chest in the manner which they did in the movies she had seen.

'Come on you stupid idiot. It's only water,' Helen panted, through gritted teeth.

'What did you do to him?' Remus asked in horror as Sirius still showed no signs of recovery.

Helen sighed exasperatedly and pinched Sirius' nose before turning to Remus.

'Do mouth to mouth,' she ordered.

Remus withdrew, horrified.

'You're his friend!' Helen said, annoyed now as Sirius started turning blue.

'You did this to him!' Remus retorted.

Helen let out a vehement exclamation, screwed up her nose in distaste and leaned forward. Just as she was about to clamp her mouth on Sirius', however, he coughed, spraying Helen's face with water.

Helen screamed and rubbed her face vigorously with her robes, disgusted that she now had Sirius' spit on her face.

Sirius sat up, breathing heavily.

'What the hell is your problem?' he shouted at her.

Helen's face emerged from her robes, red from where she had rubbed it so much.

'My problem?' she screamed back. 'You're the one who put a slug down my back!'

'I didn't try to bloody drown you… or kiss you,' Sirius retorted, glaring at her with an ugly expression.

'I did not try to kiss you, you idiot. I tried to save your worthless life,' Helen snapped back.

'It wouldn't have needed saving if you hadn't tried to drown me,' Sirius said hotly.

'It's not my fault you can't take a little water,' Helen said, getting up.

'A little water? A LITTLE WATER?'

'Shut up, Black.' Helen snapped, walking away.

'Don't you tell me to shut up. You just tried to murder me. I could get you sent to Azkaban for that,' Sirius said, smiling at the thought of never having to have to see Helen again. She annoyed him too much- she was far too smart for her own good. He was always of the opinion that girls shouldn't be that smart- it makes them dangerous.

A look of shock flitted across Helen's eyes, but then she rounded on him, wand in hand.

Remus had told her about Azkaban the other week. She had always thought that there could never be anywhere worse than being stuck at her home for the rest of her life but, after hearing Remus' description of Azkaban, she decided that Azkaban sounded far worse.

'In that case, I'll just kill you now. I might as well kill you if I'm going to be locked up for trying,' Helen said threateningly.

Sirius' eyes snapped to Helen's wand and he instinctively took a step back; he wasn't sure if she was being serious or not.

Remus quickly interjected.

'No one's going to Azkaban. Put your wand away, Helen,' he said pushing her arm down.

Sirius smirked as Helen shrugged and put it down.

'Lucky for you that Remus likes to keep the peace. I wouldn't want to have to hex you. It's not really a very gentlemanly thing to do- fighting girls,' Sirius drawled.

'Thirsty, Black?' Helen snapped coldly, raising her wand.

Sirius' eyes widened.

'Er… not really. I just remembered I have to… James… see you!' Sirius said, running away as quickly as he could.

Helen gave a cold, satisfied smile and then turned to Remus.

'Let's go to the common room and finish our potions report there. After all, I can't very well return to the library anymore.'

Remus sighed, shaking his head at her.

'I don't understand why you two bicker at each other all the time. If you both have such a mutual dislike of each other, why don't you just ignore each other altogether?' he said, sounding exasperated.

Helen smiled, a little incredulously.

'But where would be the fun in that? I would ignore someone who wasn't worth getting a reaction from- but you've seen how worked up Black gets about things. It's worth the detentions just to see him get angry.'

Remus shook his head at Helen.

'How many detentions have you had this year?'

'Twelve,' Helen said nonchalantly.

'And how many were Sirius-related?'

Helen's cheeks coloured a little.

'Twelve,' she sighed.

Remus laughed and shook his head at her.

'You seem to be spending a lot of time in detention because of Sirius,' he remarked.

Helen shrugged.

'As I said, his reaction is worth it.'

Remus tutted.

'I mean,' Helen said, turning to look at Remus, 'why do you all even put up with him? He's just a nasty, arrogant…'

'He's actually quite decent,' Remus interrupted, not joking anymore.

Helen rolled her eyes.

'I've seen the way he talks to you boys. I don't call that decent, I call that…'

'No,' Remus protested. 'I'm not lying! When it's us four boys, he's really good. He just gets a bit funny when we're out in the open… like he feels like he needs to prove himself or something.'

Helen raised her eyebrows.

'Prove himself? In what way?' she exclaimed incredulously.

Remus sighed as they came to the Common Room.

'Well, you've seen Bellatrix, right?' he asked.

Helen shivered. She had merely accidentally bumped into Bellatrix in her first week and Bellatrix had tried to challenge her to a duel for being a 'mudblood who got in her way'.

That was the first time Helen truly liked James. He had received a detention for trying to duel Bellatrix for calling Helen a 'mudblood'. Helen, at the time, didn't know what the term meant so she merely stood around, confused as to why James was so angry that someone had spoken rudely to her when Sirius spoke to her in that manner almost every day.

'What about her?' Helen asked.

'Well, she's his cousin… he has a few cousins here.'

Helen smiled darkly.

'That makes sense. They're both…'

Remus shook his head.

'What I mean is that he's in Gryffindor, whereas the rest of his family is in Slytherin. He's a pureblood from a really old pureblood family. He should have been in Slytherin and hate muggleborns. That's…'

Helen's eyes widened in shock.

'Is that why he hates Lily and I?' she gasped.

Remus shook his head.

'No! You're not understanding me! Sirius should have been like Bellatrix and the rest of his family, but he's not. He's different. He doesn't care about all that purity nonsense and… well, he gets a hard time from them all because of it. Of course, many of his actions are inexcusable, but his aloofness… well, just so you know, he has a few issues so perhaps you understand him a little better now,' Remus shrugged.

Helen went to say something but then thought the better of it as they settled into their armchairs and resumed their homework from where they had left off in the library. She did, however, begin to wonder about Sirius.

--

Despite her shaky start, life at Hogwarts seemed to be going very well for Helen. She studied very hard so that she could always be on top of her classwork, and found that many of the concepts would come very quickly to her- far more quickly than her classmates, which made her secretly proud and prompted her to study even harder.

She had also been very successful in ignoring Marina. The two had continued with their unspoken agreement to not speak with each other and it seemed to be working just fine.

For the first few months, anyway.

'Who stole my headband?'

Lily, Mary and Helen looked up to see Marina glaring at them all, severely.

Lily, ever the practical one, raised her eyebrows and said:

'Have you looked everywhere?'

'Yes,' Marina said, 'And it's no where, which means one of you stole it.'

Helen rolled her eyes and looked back to her book. It was so typical that Marina would create a spectacle for attention.

'You took it, didn't you,' Marina said, her voice softer now.

Helen looked up in disbelief.

'Me?' she repeated coldly.

'Yes,' Marina said, walking up to the end of her bed. 'It's just the sort of thing you'd do.'

'Now, Marina, I don't think it's wise to start pointing fingers,' Lily said, eyeing the two girls warily. 'For all we know, it's probably…'

'Why would I steal anything that's yours?' Helen interrupted, sitting up. 'All of your things are cheap rubbish.'

Marina's eyes widened but then her lips curled back menacingly.

'You were always such a snob about your money, weren't you? Mind you, it's not that any of us can see it with the drab clothes that you wear. At least I don't look like a middle-aged woman.'

Helen glared at Marina who looked back, unflinching.

'Look…' Lily tried to interrupt.

Helen raised her wand.

'Accio headband,' she said clearly.

She was rather surprised that the charm had worked. She had only tried it once, to humor herself when she was studying in an empty classroom one evening, and the book had only moved an inch towards her.

From under Marina's bed, the silver headband came whizzing in the air until Helen caught it. She threw it at Marina.

'There you go. If you didn't live in such a pigsty, then perhaps you'd be able to find your things…. But then again, that's how you live at home, isn't it? You don't know anything else.'

Lily and Mary gasped at the comment. Helen's eyes widened, unable to believe that she had such meanness innate to her, and Marina lunged.

They both spent the evening in the Hospital Wing, received a week's worth of detentions and Remus was no longer able to say that Sirius was the only reason for Helen being in detention so often.