Disclaimer: Being J.K. Rowling would be overrated anyway, right? I mean who would even want to…Oh, who am I kidding? That would be the most awesome thing ever! Sadly only one person can be that lucky, and she is not I.

"Hey Black," Taylor said companionably, sitting down on the couch next to him. For some reason his friends had left him all alone when they had seen her come through the Portrait Hole. She hadn't been planning to go over to him, but now that she had the opportunity she wasn't about to question this odd occurrence. Taylor was going to use it to talk to who was swiftly becoming her only friend. "Lily still angry and conspiring to through me to the tigers," she asked in an attempt to draw him out with humor. Still, Sirius Black did not respond. Studying him closely, Taylor put a hand on his shoulder. "Are you alright?" Concern flowed easily through her voice.

"Jeez, you just can't take a hint, can you? I don't want you talking to me. Go away and leave me alone!" Sirius spat out, although he did feel a sharp, painful twinge in the region of his heart. Still, Taylor did not remove her hand. Knowing that he was being heartless, and only half believing his friend's insults against her, Sirius swatted away her hand. "Leave, Brown, don't you even know when no one wants you around?" This time his words struck home, although he couldn't actually see their effect. Taylor winced and her face went emotionless, then she stood up and walked silently towards the Girls' Dormitory, disappearing up the staircase, fighting back tears. Later, after she smuggled her trunk out of the dorm and hid it in a little known alcove behind a statue of a troupe of pigs wearing tutus and tap shoes, she would discover obscenities written over all her possessions in permanent marker that would take hours of painstaking 'Scourgifys' to remove.

Meanwhile, crouched behind the couch Sirius was sitting on feeling terribly blank and empty, Lily Evans got a foreboding sensation in the pit of her stomach. She wondered briefly whether she had messed up people's lives more than she had ever wanted to in her mad revenge for the hurt little girl she once had been. 'Naw,' she thought reassuringly to herself, 'this couldn't possibly hurt anyone. Sirius won't feel a thing by tomorrow. He'll find another slut to get his jollies with before the week's out. And Taylor…well, she deserves what she gets.' The bad feeling in the pit of her stomach increased. It felt like an ulcer was forming to spite her.

Weeks went by, moving Hogwarts slowly into October. To many, it seemed like any other October; Hagrid could be seen winterizing many of the outdoor trees, even trying to fit mittens onto the Whomping Willow, Fang by his side distracted by the many falling leaves and snapping at them as they fell; Slughorn was busy making pepper-up potions for Madame Pomfrey as his were said to be the best; Even Filch could be seen muttering about the added stress of students soon tracking snow into his clean hallways. On the other hand, McGonagall and Dumbledore could often be seen whispering together conspiratorially. While this had definitely been seen before, that normalcy was offset by the worried looks the normally calm Professors displayed almost constantly. Their worry was one they could not share with others, no matter how many times other teachers asked what was wrong or suggested bringing back 'Karaoke night' to cheer them up. Despite their attempts during the school-wide detention and their rather pitiful half-attempts since (involving a half eaten banana, flobberworms, and a spork), Sirius Black and Taylor Brown were now pointedly ignoring each other. Sirius was still blind, but for all the interaction the two of them had, everything was back to the way it had been.

"Albus," McGonagall started one evening at dinner, "nothing we're dong is working."

"Never fear, my dear Professor," Dumbledore reassured her, "we're bond to stumble onto something soon. All we need is a…breakthrough, if you will."

"With all due respect, Headmaster, Black and this Brown person don't seem very well matched in the first place. Black is a player and she's gone successfully unnoticed for several years. Black goofs off in class and hardly ever has his homework done on time, she never draws attention to herself and turns the same homework in early. He is extremely popular, and half the school doesn't know who she is. They're complete opposites or I'm the Queen of England! I don't know why we thought they'd ever mean diddlysquat to each other!" McGonagall ranted.

"Haven't you been paying any attention to those particular students over the last few weeks, Professor," Dumbledore admonished.

"I don't know what you mean," McGonagall spluttered.

"Try looking at them sometime, maybe you'll notice what I notice, Your Majesty" Dumbledore told her, looking at her closely over his half-moon spectacles a small smile on his lips and just a hint of a sparkle in his eyes. "And, anyway, I have a fool proof plan."

"Not another one," McGonagall muttered under her breath.

"What was that?" Dumbledore looked over at her curiously.

"Nothing, Albus, nothing at all."

"Padfoot…Padfoot…earth to Sirius!" James said exasperatedly, pulling a hand through his hair with frustration. If things kept going as they were he wouldn't have any hair left by Christmas. 'What a lovely surprise for my mum,' he thought ruefully. He looked down at his best mate in the world, his brother for all intents and purposes. A twinge of guilt imbedded itself in his gut, grabbed his heart and refused to let go.

For weeks now Sirius had been lacking his usual flair for life. It wasn't something that James had noticed straight away, Sirius had been good at putting up a front. But as the days had gone by Sirius's cover had begun to drop. At first Sirius hadn't wanted to plan the next full moon, even though he always loved the full moon. He also hadn't wanted to test out the "Sirius as a dog won't be blind" theory. Then he stopped eating with his usual gusto at meals. As opposed to three heaping plates of food he only ate two. After a while Sirius had even stopped scrupulously gelling his luscious locks (or so he'd dubbed his hair in second year). Most disturbingly, he had stopped responding (read: hexing and jinxing cruelly) to the Slytherin's taunting (well, for the most part. He still potty-mouthed them sometimes, but without the hatred he usually put behind each insult). But James had ignored that his best bud was acting a little under the weather and assured himself that it was nothing but the blindness finally getting to him, anything but it being his fault. Remus, however, had been hinting in his usual disapproving (but not doing anything to change things) manner that this was, indeed, all James's fault. James refused to believe this, instead deciding to act like nothing was wrong. Even if the unflappable James Potter was actually worried.

"Have you even been listening to anything I say?" James asked when he'd gotten Sirius's attention.

"Yeah, sure," Sirius answered distractedly, "you were talking about Evans, right?"

"Uh-huh, but what about Evans, then," James tested him.

"Her beautiful eyes, nose, mouth, ears, hair, so on and so forth, and whether you should ask her out," Sirius stated without really paying attention.

"Fine," James sighed, "I didn't think you were paying attention, but I guess you were."

"Or he just knows your Lily-rant by heart," Remus suggested dryly.

"Lily-rant? I don't rant about Lily! Even if she's the most beautiful and divine creature that God put on this green Earth. Even if she's been sleeping in the bed next to me for the last two weeks." Remus looked from the dreamy-eyed James to the lackluster Sirius.

"So, what do you guys think of those Chudley Canons? I hear they're on a winning streak," Remus tried to distract his two friends from their reveries. James immediately snapped to and discussed the impossibility of the Chudley Canons winning…well anything. The person that Remus was really hoping to perk up was still distinctly un-perky.

"What about you, Sirius?" Remus looked over at Sirius, concerned, "Sirius?"

"What?" Sirius finally turned his head towards his buddies. Remus shared a look with James.

"We were talking about the Chudley Canons, you know, their chances this year?""Oh…poor," Sirius said, "poor as always."

"What has you all distracted then?"

"Nothing," Sirius insisted in what was becoming his usual monotone.

"No, seriously, Sirius," James insisted. Sirius did not even frown at the pun on his name.

"Is it a girl," Remus asked knowingly, but still hoping he was wrong and Sirius's departure from norm was not about a particular girl like he suspected it was.

"Oh, Siri-wiri!" Came a girlish squeal from somewhere behind the couch. "I just knew you'd come around!" She flung herself onto Sirius's lap and began to 'pet' his face. James eyed her like one would watch a rabid dog, edging quickly away. Sirius looked disgusted and was busily trying to remove her from his lap. She clung to him like gum to the bottom of shoes; it was impossible to get rid of her once she attached herself to a…victim.

"Yeah, uh, you guys have fun with that," Remus said, ignoring the pleading looks Sirius was sending to the general vicinity of his friends, but was actually giving an empty armchair. "James and I are…er…going to the library." The armchair was now getting death glares and was in great danger of being hexed into the Great Furniture Store in the Sky by Sirius.

"Oh my god, I'll stay here and take care of Siri-dearie! You can totally, like, trust me and stuff!" Missy insisted, not noticing the eye rolls from Remus and James and the angry frustration of Sirius. Remus and James quickly moved out of Sirius's arm reach and out of the Portrait Hole.

"So, where we going?" James asked as soon as the boys climbed through the Portrait Hole. Remus grabbed his arm and started pulling him along.

"We need to talk.""Our relationship isn't like that, Moony. We're only friends: I definitely don't swing that way," James joked as he tried to free his sleeve from the iron grip that held him captive. "Come on Moony, let go!"

"Stop jerking around like that," Remus hissed as they entered a courtyard, "you're drawing attention to us."

"HELP! A LUNATIC HAS ME CAPTIVE! SAVE ME!" James screamed to the general student populace who were strewn about the courtyard hanging out with friends and generally enjoying the nice (coolish) weather while they still could. After the initial glance towards James, the other students cheerfully continued what they were doing. "YOU'VE ALL CONTRIBUTED TO MY EARLY DEATH!" shrieked James in an unsuccessful effort to save himself from talking with his friend. Remus simply rolled his eyes and continued dragging James to a spot under a tree down by the lake.

"Now," Remus said seriously, "are you going to stay put or am I going to have to hex you?" James eyed Remus's wand warily, sighed, then leaned against the tree with his arms crossed sullenly.

"What did you want to talk about?" James whined.

"Sirius."

"He's fine. We left him with a girl hanging all over him and everything," James insisted.

"But he didn't look happy about it, and that's not like him."

"Seriously, no pun intended, Sirius is fine. He's got a slutty girl to make-out with and that's all he needs."

"I told you this would all come back to bite you in the arse! I told you all that this was a bad idea! But do you listen, of course not. You decide that Sirius and that girl needed to be separated. And for no good reason, either," Remus Lupin ranted.

"Hey, we did that on Lily's good advice!" James jumped in, but Remus ignored him.

"No good reason at all. Did you see them that morning? I mean it. Did you?""Yeah, of course," James said quickly, slightly frightened by Remus's slightly manic expression.

"No. I don't mean did you glance at them and then put it all out of your mind. Did you see them!" Remus demanded. James thought back to all those weeks ago. For the first time he examined 'the crime scene' so to speak. He had woken up to Lily's lovely shrieking (he was smitten with the girl, what could he say?, even her shrieking was lovely). After he got past the fact that the beautiful object of his desire was currently in his bedroom, he looked over to the person she was shrieking at. It was an odd sight to say the least. Sirius was glaring angrily at Lily, and comforting girl with her head tucked protectively in his chest. He had his arms wrapped firmly around her waist and was stroking her hair. Sirius was defending the girl in his bed to Lily, looking more and more angry the more Lily yelled. The girl looked like she was in tears, or barely holding them back. Then Sirius was carefully and caringly led from the room by the small brunette. James repeated the scene in his mind to be entirely sure of the odd images racing about therein. His brow scrunched up in denial, one of his hands wove itself through his hair automatically.

"So what?" He tried denying everything once more. But the images of his best mate looking positively gleeful (beneath the anger directed at Lily, of course), once released, were impossible to dismiss to the back of his mind.

"So what, nothing! Prongs, he was falling in love with her and you ruined it! We all ruined it."

"He gave her up pretty easily to 'be in love with her,' as you say.""But look at what it is doing to him! He's falling apart. Have you seen him recently? Merlin, he's not paying attention to Quidditch, or even pretty girls who are practically straddling him!"

"To be fair, she is the President of his fan club, and you know how he feels about them.""True," Remus considered, "but its been awhile since he's had a girlfriend. It's been longer than before he hit puberty!"

"What about that Ravenclaw I saw him with after lunch the other day?" James insisted.

"She was walking him to his next class!" James ran another hand through his hair but refused to admit defeat. To admit defeat was to admit he was wrong, and James Potter was never wrong!

"But I think I saw him chatting her up!" James said hopefully. Remus shot him a death look at this obviously untrue comment.

"He was asking her not to run him into any walls for the fun of it, like you do a lot."

"Still, there must be something there," James claimed, grasping at straws.

"Look, James, that night," they both knew what night he was referring to, "I woke up around midnight, as usual, and couldn't get back to sleep. So I went to go look at the moon," this was an usual occurrence. Remus liked to look at the moon in the week following the full moon, he found the smallness of crescent moons reassuring (it told him that he had weeks yet until his next horror-filled transformation. Conversely, the fullness of the waxing gibbous made him anxious and confrontational). "And when I was going back to bed I happened to notice that Sirius wasn't alone in bed. He was all wrapped around this little curly-haired brunette, not his usual type at all. Even stranger was that they were both fully clothed. I remember he had this little content smile on his face like all was right in his world, like everything finally made sense." Remus said this last bit with a tad bit of jealousy in his voice. James looked like he was about to say something, but Remus continued, "and she, the girl, Brondom or Brown or whatever, she looked just as happy." James swallowed heavily.

"She's not even his type," he tried in a last-ditch attempt.

"Fuck, James, we've been over this!" Remus growled scarily.

"Look, I agree that something's wrong with Sirius, okay? But we don't know anything about this person. Hell, we don't even know her name! For all we know Lily was right and Sirius is better off as far away from her as he can get!"

"But then again, she could be the best thing that'll ever happen to him!"

"Look, I know that you can't get a girl so your trying to live vicariously through Sirius, but…" A hard blow to the jaw cut him off. The boys proceeded to have a fast but furious fist fight. It is a well known fact that boys will be boys and have occasional fights. Luckily for them, they also forgive more easily than girls. The fight finally ended with James sporting a broken jaw (Remus hit really hard near the full moon, and actually, any time you got him really mad.), Remus was now the proud owner of a black eye, and both boys were closer friends than before."Sorry, Moony," James winced in pain from his broken jaw, and clasped Remus on the back with unnecessary force, "I'm just worried about Padfoot."

"That's okay, mate," Remus pat James on the head with equal force, "let's just head on up to the Hospital Wing to get that jaw fixed. Sorry about that, by the way," he grinned wolfishly. They started towards the castle, ignoring the stares of their curious classmates.

"Look, Moony, I've been thinking…OW…about what you were saying. We're going to spy on this person first, though, to make sure she's ok. OW!" James's jaw really needed to be healed. Talking with it was only causing him pain. Still, James's heartfelt but wary words made Remus smile widely, even as his eye swelled shut. They both walked simultaneously towards a shortcut to the Hospital Wing that they knew well. Pulling back the tapestry they both gasped at the bloody, bruised girl leaning against the wall just inside. She looked at them, the panic in her eyes dimming only slightly when she saw who it was.

"Please don't let them in," she said cryptically before passing out.

Author's Note: Do you know who's behind the tapestry? Oh, is it too obvious, then? Huh. Well, you're just going to have to wait to see what happened, won't you? Oh, and here's a preview for the next chapter while you're waiting:

"We have a special treat for you today, don't we boys?" She grinned happily, verging very nearly on insanely.

"Yeah," said every single one of her companions with a glint to their eyes that Taylor didn't like. The handsome boy with the artfully gelled black hair and cold grey eyes drew out his wand. Taylor's eyes darted from shadowed face to shadowed face. The only light was spilling from the crack around the door. Time seemed to stop. This illusion was only increased by the particles of dust floating slowly in the slim slices of light. She looked towards the door's silhouette with a great longing for escape, then steeled herself bravely for the pain. She had faced pain before and knew what to expect from them. She could take what they dished out, or so she thought.

So, what do you think happens? I'd LOVE it if you left a review, even just a short one telling me if you love it, if you hate it, if you're apathetic towards it. Although, I think we all know which type I'd love the most. J