Disclaimer: I definitely do not own these characters and everything is for the sake of entertainment only. Title also not mine.
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I Withdraw Part 2: Il·lu·sion
"So, let me just clarify the situation here Padfoot..." Remus began, with a certain sense of doom. "You kissed Raisa, then proceeded to avoid her and then kissed her again, before telling her that if the two of you continued to kiss then she was more than likely going to die."
"That's about the sum of it," Sirius replied warily, wondering why Remus seemed to have an innate ability to make the situation sound so much terrible than he had managed to convince himself.
Remus frowned at his friend. "And still, you find it shocking that she resorted to physical violence?"
"Okay," Sirius snapped. "Maybe she had every right to hit me but I was actually trying to protect her."
Remus opened his mouth to reply but was beaten to it by the rather angry voice of James Potter: "Didn't do you much good, did it?"
Both Remus and Sirius nodded in greeting as James grimly took a seat next to them.
"Fallen out with your girlfriend already?" Sirius asked jokingly, choosing to ignore James' thundery expression and simply be thankful that this was an opportunity for attention to be deflected away from him.
"This. Is. All. Your. Fault," James replied through clenched teeth, taking a leaf out of Lily's book and holding in his anger.
"Funny you should say that..." Sirius remarked conversationally. "...because me and Remus were just establishing that everything is in fact my fault, right down to world hunger and the common cold."
Remus exhaled noisily: "That's not what I said Sirius."
James gave Remus a look which suggested that even if Remus had not voiced the above then perhaps he really should have done, before scowling again in Sirius' direction:
"Your little bout of honesty might have cost me my future wife."
"I warned him," Remus interjected, fighting the feeling that sometimes there was really no point in even opening his mouth.
Where most things were concerned Sirius Black was selectively deaf; after almost six years in his company Remus was becoming more and more painfully aware of this fact. Although having said that, the same could be said of a certain Raisa Ramsey.
"Like hell you warned me Moony," Sirius retorted, tracing angry lines in the dirt with his shoe.
"When it comes to things connected to love and death Raisa can be a little sensitive," Remus continued in infuriatingly measured tones. "And that is what I told you."
Sirius scoffed: "Sensitive? Moony, in what universe can delicate and sensitive be even remotely considered as the same?"
"I was trying to be tactful," Remus protested, ruing that both Sirius and James had a way of perpetually turning round arguments so that anyone but them was at fault.
Sirius fixed Remus with a withering stare, all the while wishing that some of his friend's tact had rubbed off on him - a tactful guy would have found a better way to break his secret to Raisa than accosting her on a staircase and kissing her senseless.
Unfortunately though, it just wasn't in his nature to think before he acted.
Unfortunately too, he was completely certain that having to hurt Rai was for all the right reasons.
"When are you going to stop letting this 'supposed' prophecy rule your life?" James cut in. He was highly tempted to add "and rule the lives of your friends" to the end of the sentence, but didn't due to a sneaking suspicion that it might sound selfish.
"Stop with the air quotes," protested Sirius with a brooding scowl.
"Until we see some evidence that it's anything more than a figment of your overactive imagination, the air quotes will continue," James retorted smartly.
Unable to think up a witty enough retort to this Sirius fell silent.
Did James not think that he'd wondered constantly whether it was all just a product of his imagination? It would definitely make his life a whole lot easier if he didn't have to guard his heart against the slightest sign of affection.
"You know, Lily thinks that you're using this as an elaborate excuse to avoid commitment," James piped up when the gap caused by noone talking had become too much for him to handle.
"You told Evans?" Sirius yelped, appalled at James' apparently very loose tongue.
James shrugged. "She tends to yell at me if I don't tell her things and, besides, she heard most of it from Raisa anyway."
Sirius flinched involuntarily at the mention of her name.
"You don't – erm – tell Lily everything, do you?" Remus muttered inconspicuously into James' ear, evidently with his lycanthropic activities in mind.
"Of course not Moony," James assured. "It's not my secret to tell...but obviously please don't tell Lily I said that."
The pair exchanged eyes gratefully while Sirius let out a snort of derision.
"As much as I hate to break up the male bonding, last time I checked the prophecy was not exactly your secret to tell either," he snapped, feeling now as though the whole entire world was out to get him.
"You were the one who told Raisa though," Remus pointed out.
"Yeah, actually can I just ask something?" James spoke up here, having been pondering something over in his mind for the last few seconds.
Sirius looked up at him in annoyance: "No."
James continued regardless - "How do you if Rai's the girl from the 'prophecy'? How can you be so sure that you love her?"
"I've had enough of this," Sirius sighed, pulling himself up from his seat on the grass and standing above his two supposed friends.
"There is a prophecy. I fall in love with a girl and it will lead to her death. Professor Trelawney said it. My uncle said it. The book said it. I could see myself falling for Raisa and I don't want to put her in the firing line. That is how it is. End of story."
"Wait a second," Remus held up a hand to stop Sirius from storming off. "You never mention anything to us about an uncle or a book."
Sirius swallowed thickly. Yup, a slight drawback of trying so hard to protect everyone was that sooner or later it caught up with you and sometimes people did not take so kindly to being protected from the truth...