RECAP: CHAPTER 2:

She heard the portrait open and close. Ryan could tell that it was him without any problem. Taking a deep breath she turned, looking right into his eyes. Those eyes that could see right through her.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to. Please."

He just stood there looking at her. He shook his head and walked up to his room without saying a word, leaving Ryan, heartbroken, to think about everything that had brought them to this point.

CHAPTER 4:Bed Buggies and Kisses Goodnight

After James walked up the stairs, Ryan went back to staring at the fire. She thought back to everything that the two of them had been through together. Even after their promise they had shared everything with each other, nothing had ever been awkward between the two of them.

She remember one night during second year where the two of them had been sitting cross-legged, facing each other on James bed in the boys dormitory. They had laughed together over their 'other first kisses' as they liked to call them. Ryan's had been with a boy who slobbered all over her and shoved his tongue as far in her mouth as he could, just leaving it there like a dead slug. Needless to say she had never kissed him again. James' had been with a girl who, as soon as the kiss started, had become very aggressive and taken over. James had been disappointed that he hadn't gotten to show off his "technique" as he liked to call it. James had dated that girl for about another week before he broke up with her. He confided in Ryan, telling her that the girl was to pushy for him.

They had never had a fight that lasted longer then a few hours before this. Three hours was the longest. Ryan had a feeling that this was going to last a lot longer than that. But as much as she didn't like it Ryan could understand why James was mad at her. They had agreed not to tell anyone about the promise. James had never told Sirius and that was why Ryan had never told the girls. The only way they would tell anyone was if Ryan had started dating one of James' friends or vice versa. And here she had just blurted it out to everyone. Ryan didn't know if she could handle it if they didn't make up soon.

Without her realizing it, tears had been running down Ryan's face the entire time, until she finally let go and they turned into full-blown, gut-wrenching sobs. What broke her heart the most was that this was the first time in nearly fourteen years that she would go to bed with out him kissing her goodnight on the forehead and warning her to watch out for the "bed buggies" as she had called them when she was little.

Up in the girls dormitory, Peia, Tay and Al were talking quietly.

"What do you think she meant when she said she couldn't tell us?" Peia asked. "It can't be that it is to embarrassing because Al lost hers to that ugly, geeky Hufflepuff and we didn't make to much fun of her and nothing could be worse than that."

Al made a sputtering noise of protest. "Hey, he may be ugly and geeky but he was sweet. Besides not all of us can loose it to the 'Hogwarts Sex God', though I still don't know why you would want to sleep with Black." She gave a small shudder of disgust as she spit out Sirius name like it was the plague.

Peia simply replied, "Made for a good first time, which is more than most girls can say."

Tay thought about it for a little while before she came up with an answer to the original question. "My guess would be that the guy didn't what it to get around, either because he was protecting Ryan's reputation or because he doesn't like to be the center of attention. And we all know that the guy would be the center of attention because the boys would be out for his blood. She obviously cares enough for this guy to keep quiet. We all know she wouldn't keep anything from us without a good reason."

"Yeah, I guess. But it's not like we would tell anyone. She should have known us better than to think we would tell anyone." Al said.

Peia jumped into defend Ryan. She may have been upset that she didn't know something about her best friend, but angry or not she always had her back. "Of course she knows that. It's just that once things are said out loud there is more of a chance of people finding out. Remember when she and Finn first started dating? We were the only ones that she told and then all of a sudden James and Sirius were storming off to the Ravenclaw common room to try and kill him. I swear I think those boys have our room bugged somehow so that they can know all of our secrets."

"Wouldn't surprise me," Tay muttered. "But for now we need to focus on Ryan. Something is seriously wrong and we need to figure out how to fix it."

"I don't think we can right now. She'll talk to us when she's ready. The most important thing right now is that she works things out with whoever this guy is. We just need to be there for her and make sure that she isn't hurt too much."

Before anyone could add anything else all three girls grabbed their left wrists, which were giving off a red glow coupled with a quick searing pain. All four of the girls have practically identical tattoos on the inside of their left wrists. It is of a shooting star, and underneath was written "Vasilia" (pronunciation Vah-SEE-lee-ya) in elegant cursive writing. Vasilia was the goddess of the stars, and that name along with a shooting star was the calling card of sorts that the girls left behind for all of their pranks. That was the only identifying mark that the Marauders knew their rivals by. And being boys, the Marauders never noticed the tattoo that each girl had, which would have identified them as the rivals of the Marauders. The reason that the tattoos are practically identical is because each girl had hers done in a different color. Ryan's was red, Peia's purple, Tay's gold and Al's black. The tattoos also served another purposed, not just a calling card. The girls had had the tattoos done with mood ink. If one of the girls was in danger, very scared or incredibly upset, then the tattoo on each of the other three girls would become momentarily painful and glow the color of the girl in need. They had taken it one step further and found a very handy charm to place on the tattoos. It worked so that if any of the girls were in need of help, her location would appear, written on the star after the glow had stopped, so that the others could get to her.

Right now, after the glow subsided, the word 'Gryffindor Common Room' appeared on each girl's wrist. They wasted no time in sprinting out the door and down the stair into the common room, where they found Ryan curled into a ball on one of the chairs in hysterics. They all rushed to her and she flung herself at Peia, and collapsed onto her shoulder. Today was a Hogsmeade trip, which was where they were headed before the fight between Sirius and Ryan, so none of the girls were worried about anyone walking into the common room so they stayed there to comfort her. Al and Tay were quiet while rubbing Ryan's back and Peia held her, murmuring nonsensical things in her ear to calm her down. When Ryan had calmed down considerably, Peia started talking.

"Ry? Do you want to talk about anything?"

She desperately did want to talk about it. The only problem was, she didn't know how to tell the girls about it without giving away specifics that she wasn't supposed to give.

"Yes, but the first thing that you guys have to realize is that I can't tell you who the guy is."

The girls started to protest, but Ryan cut them off.

"No, we promised that we wouldn't tell anyone. The only way people would know is if I wanted to date one of his friends or he wanted to date one of mine. Then we would tell the person the truth, but other than that no one knows. Okay?"

They agreed, but they didn't like it

"That's the reason that I never told anyone. I knew that people would be hurt or get mad. You guys are mad that I didn't tell you when it happened and that I won't tell you now, the boys are going to be mad that someone touched me without their permission and they will try and find the boy and kill him, the boy is mad that I screamed it in the hallway, and James won't talk to me. I don't know what I'll do if J.J. stays mad at me."

Here Ryan started to cry again. The girls just waited it out while all holding her in a big hug. After she calmed down again, she took a deep breath and restarted.

"The guy and I didn't really like each other. It was more of a comfort and trust type of thing. We were young and curious, so we decided that we wanted to know what all the fuss was about."

"Exactly how young is 'young'?" Tay asked.

"Very beginning of fourth year young."

"Oh my god. Beginning of fourth year? Ry, depending on how close to the beginning, you would have just turned fourteen. Your birthdays not even a month before school starts." Exclaimed Peia, astounded that it was that long ago. She had been expecting it to have happened just a few weeks ago, maybe months but never years.

"Thanks Peia. I had no idea when MY birthday was or that I would have been fourteen in fourth year. What would I do without you to inform me of these things?" came the sarcastic reply. Peia, being very mature, stuck her tongue out at Ryan. "And when I said very beginning I meant very beginning. Two weeks after school started."

The girls just looked at her. That was really early. They thought that Peia had been the first one in their class and she hadn't lost hers until the very end of fifth year. Al and Tay had both been in the middle of sixth.

Before they could say anything Ryan continued. "Before you say anything you have to know that I've never had sex since then. There's never been anyone that I cared enough about to do it again."

"What about Finn? You guys have been close for a while now." Al said.

"Yeah but not close enough for that. And I think that Finn understands that because he's never pushed me or tried to get me to reconsider my decision. Maybe in the future, but I just don't feel that strongly about him right now."

Then Peia finally got the nerve to ask the question that they all wanted to know. The one question they always asked when they talked about a boy they had been with. "So . . . how was it?"

Up in the boys dormitory Sirius, Remus, and Peter was talking about some girl that they had seen at the Three Broomsticks. James was only half listening while getting ready to go to bed. Just as he was about to get in, Sirius spoke up.

"Aren't you going to tell Ryan goodnight?" he asked with a curious look. They guys all knew that James always said goodnight to Ryan. They wondered what could make him this mad that he would skip it. Surely it couldn't be about the hallway earlier.

James felt like crying when he heard this. He knew that Ryan loved this tradition of theirs. That's why he still did it after all this time. It had all started one night not long after they had met, when Ryan had admitted to James that she was scared to go to bed because there were monsters under the bed. James had been her hero and told her that he would scare the monsters away. After Ryan was positive that the bed was all clear she had declared that all she had to worry about now where bed buggies. James had told her that he would always save her from monsters, kissed her forehead and said "Watch out for those bed buggies". Ever since, Ryan can't sleep without James kissing her goodnight and telling her that. They had never missed a night. Even if James had to go to her house just for their goodnight ritual, he always did. And he'd never admit it, but he liked to do it too. He thought about it for a moment. He knew what had happened today in the hallway wasn't totally Ryan's fault. When she gets mad, she really has trouble controlling the things that come out of her mouth. But that didn't mean that James wasn't upset or that he was ready to forgive her. He came to a decision. He wouldn't break tradition just because of some stupid fight, and maybe if he did this Ryan would understand that while he needed time things would go back to normal eventually.

"Yeah, I am", he said as he walked out of the room.

Ryan stopped her conversation with the girl as she heard footsteps coming down the boys stairs and held her breath, not daring to think that it was James. But her eyes never left the bottom of the stairway. James stepped out wearing only a pair of black pajama pants and a pair of rainbow socks that Ryan had given him for Christmas years ago. It was one of James' oddities that he couldn't sleep without these socks on. He only wore them to bed so they were still in pretty good condition. When he appeared Ryan felt like she could finally breathe again, even if she couldn't move or speak.

James saw her curled up in a chair, surrounded by the girls, face red and blotchy from crying. He noticed that she hadn't moved a muscle since he appeared as if she was afraid of what he was going to say or do. He stopped in front of her chair and knelt down. Giving her a small grin, he kissed her softly on the forehead. Standing up again he said, "Watch out for those bed buggies R.P." and walked back to the stairs.

Just as he was stepping up to the first one, something small and soft collided with his back. Arms wrapped around his neck and he automatically dropped his hands to his sides to grab Ryan's legs, knowing instinctively that she would have had to jump on his back to reach his neck since she was so much shorter than him. When Ryan was situated so that it looked like James was giving her a piggy-back ride, her arms squeezed around his neck so she was hugging him tightly and cutting off his oxygen supply. She leaned into his ear and whispered, "'Night J.J.", before jumping off his back. James turned to see her sprinting up the girls stairs. He continued up his stairs smiling to himself.

The girls tattoo

Disclaimer: I, unfortunately, dont own James Potter or anything to do with his world