CHAPTER TWO

Note: I'm really not sure what kind of story this is. It keeps swinging between romantic, angsty and humourous. I keep changing my mind. I think that most of the humour and romance will come later? I'm not sure.

Trying to fall asleep whilst crushing yourself up into a ball becomes easier with practise.

By the end of the week, I fount it almost comforting to lie on my side and draw my knees right up to my chest. Not that I had much choice in the matter. Call me a coward, but there was no way in hell that I was sleeping in the same room as Sirius Black.

It was half-fear, and - perhaps ridiculously - half-pride that kept me from ascending the stairs into the dormitories. Instead, I spent my nights balled up on a sofa in the corner of the common room. Surprisingly, nobody had noticed me yet. I put it down to the dim lighting of the common room combined with years of practise at being a nobody. I stayed up late into the night in the library, sitting wedged between two bookshelves so that I went unseen by the librarian. It was only in the early hours of the morning that I returned to the common room – forced to do so by sheer exhaustion.

The days were difficult too. The sheer amount of influence that Sirius Black had over his peers astounded me. The students placed in Gryffindor House usually frowned upon bullying and suchlike, but everyone seemed to turn a blind eye to the way Sirius treated me. Maybe they all felt I deserved it.

I had only one thing to be thankful for – Sirius always stopped short of downright violence. Yes, he pushed me around, but he never actually hit or hexed me. Not that that was particularly comforting when my books were pushed off the desk onto the floor, or my robes splattered with ink. And all the while Sirius never even said a word– he just casually went about making my life a misery with a seeming lack of interest.

I could get through it. It wasn't that bad. I mean, he wasn't smashing my head in or anything. Things would improve. He couldn't hate me forever… could he?

More than anything, it was the lack of sleep that was getting to me. Every night I jerked awake countless times, squinting through the darkness to check if anyone was there. I found it hard to concentrate on lessons, and I would close my eyes for just a moment only to find that half an hour had passed and I was late again.

The phrase 'a living hell' often came to mind.

The typical evening featured me curled up in my usual corner of the library, and although my eyes were closed, I was doing my best not to fall asleep. It was proving extremely difficult. The library was completely silent, and it was almost possible to believe that I was the only person in the whole school. Although I knew I should get up and go back to the common room, I simply couldn't. I had reached such a point of complete exhaustion that I was physically unable to move even a muscle. The week of constant nervousness and sleeplessness had taken its toll.

I was about to fall utterly into the dark depths of sleep, when I heard voices. Any other time I would have leapt up, but I was beyond caring. The librarian could find and expel me, for all it mattered.

"Sirius, James!" a slightly whining voice whispered urgently. "Look!"

I heard the name, and I knew what it would mean, but the school would have to collapse before I opened my eyes. Fine. Whatever. Sirius could do anything he wanted; I wasn't going to move.

"Shhh, Peter!" It was James Potter. So, the whole posse was here. "We'll get caught if you keep leaping at every shadow."

"No, really! There's someone there," Peter insisted. I heard a weary sigh.

"Peter, just shut- Wait! You're right, there is someone there! Take off the cloak!"

I heard three sets of footsteps coming towards me, then a startled exclamation.

"Well! Sirius, if it isn't your terrified little friend." James sounded both amused and surprised. I felt the toe of a shoe nudge me. "It looks as if he's asleep."

"He looks like he's dead. Come on, let's keep going." Peter sounded genuinely worried that he had just discovered the corpse of one of his peers, and wanted to escape the scene before someone appeared and blamed him for the death.

"There're bloody massive dark circles under his eyes." James's voice was almost impressed. "It doesn't look like he's slept for months. Maybe you should go a bit easier on him, Sirius."

Up until this point, I hadn't been aware of Sirius's silence, but now the moment of quiet that ensued seemed louder than a yell. Suspense gripped my insides like a vice, and I knew that a lot depended on Sirius's response. Hating myself for it, I silently begged him to agree. Please…please…

"Yeah," Sirius's voice a low growl. "Yeah, maybe I should. It's not like he's a Slytherin or anything… Anyway, he looks as if he's about to have a nervous breakdown."

I couldn't believe my ears. The relief that washed over me was so strong that I almost cried. Did I really just hear that? Could it possibly be that Sirius was actually going to start leaving me alone?

"You go on ahead. Take the cloak; I'll be right behind you."

I was still coming to terms with what I had just heard, so I almost missed Sirius's muttered words. A few moments later I heard footsteps leaving the library, and then silence.

The hush went on for so long that I was half-asleep when I suddenly heard someone crouch down beside me, their breathing soft in the quiet library. I waited.

"What is it about you?" It was whispered so softly that it was barely audible. "What do I want from you?" An instant later, I felt a hand cupping the side of my face, a thumb gently tracing the curve of my lower lip.

What was going on?!

I was so completely shocked that I flinched sharply, my eyes snapping open. Forget the school collapsing – this woke me up far more thoroughly!

Sirius knelt in front of me, his dark hair falling over one eye. When he saw that I was awake he jerked back, his arm whipping away from my face as if I had burned him.

"How long have you been awake?" he bellowed, his voice echoing through the library. His eyes – which had been wide and bewildered a second ago – were now narrowed and flashing. I opened my mouth and blinked, searching for words.

"What did you hear? How long were you awake?" He grabbed my collar with both hands and yanked me forwards, shaking me violently. I gasped and tried desperately to speak. He slammed me back against the bookshelves, sending books cascading down in a thunderous crash to the floor.

"I…I…" I couldn't get any further than that. Footsteps were running towards us, lights flickering on around the library.

"Shit!" muttered Sirius, letting go of me suddenly. I dropped painfully to the ground, so dazed and confused that I could barely think.

"What is this? What's going on!" The librarian towered over us, red-faced and shrieking, surrounded by several teachers.

"Erm, just a bit of late-night reading." Sirius got to his feet, shoving his hands into his pockets, standing amongst the wreckage. "You know – when you get that unstoppable midnight urge for literature, nothing will suffice except a trip to the library…!" For once, my inability to speak when under pressure seemed to be a good thing. The teachers before us seemed to be suffering internal haemorrhaging as they all turned the same livid shade of red.

" Well, Black, I think right now nothing will suffice except a week of detentions! And fifty points from Gryffindor!" The librarian seemed unable to speak, so one of the teachers had stepped in. "And that goes for you as well, Lupin! Now get up and get into your beds or you'll find yourselves in even more trouble than you are already!"

I stumbled to my feet, swaying slightly. I didn't dare to look anywhere near Sirius. Oh god – a week of detentions with him. A week! I may as well just dig my own grave and be done with it.

Sirius strode ahead of me, and I purposefully took as long as was humanly possible to return to the common room. If I had thought the past few days had been bad, things were about to get a whole lot worse. As I walked through the dark corridors, though, something other than my impending doom kept flitting through my thoughts. A hand resting on my cheek… a finger running over my lip… a puzzled and almost desperate-sounding whisper…

I was definitely in for a complicated week.

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