Chapter 12

There my sweet Sirius was, limp in the arms of James and Remus. Other than the fact that he was out cold and his hair being a little messier than usual, he looked perfectly fine. I deduced that Benny must have hit him with a stunning spell of some sort.

"w-what.. ?" I asked. I was still having a hard time finding words.

Remus seemed to understand what I was trying to ask. "Sirius ran after your brother and his friends." He started. "He ran past us when we were walking to Honeydukes so James could stalk Lily..." He said sending a look to James like it was a bad thing or something... THEY ARE MEANT FOR EACH OTHER! ... But that's a conversation for another day... "Anyway, we caught up with him and asked what happened and he said something about a girl in the woods.. honestly, I thought he was talking about you at first, but then I remembered seeing Susan walk off with that git Rosier..." (Remus was not a fan of his; Rosier was very outspoken about his hatred for werewolves) "...and realized something must have happened and that you probably stayed with her. We ran after your brother. When we caught up to him, Sirius shoved him into a wall and asked 'what the hell was wrong with him' and 'how he could let them attack some innocent girl'... Then Benny said something about how he thought Sirius would enjoy the show? Not sure what that meant... but then Benny brought you into it... called you some really disgusting things I don't want to repeat... but and that's when Sirius just completely lost his shit. He tackled Benny and punched him a few times when he refused to take back what he said about you... but eventually let him go before he did too much damage since he was your brother and all... But then..." he trailed off.

"But then that cowardly excuse for a brother you have sent three powerful stunning spells straight at Sirius's back when it was turned." James finished angrily. "That's when we tried to call out for you...we couldn't leave him here."

I was in shock. How could Benny do such a thing? "We need to get him back up to the castle to see Poppy." I said as the other two nodded. We had to kind of carry/drag him by his arms... well James and Remus carried/dragged him, I was really there for moral support. Turns out Mr. Stupid Handsome is also Stupid Heavy. We really need to figure out how to conjure a stretcher or something... maybe Minnie would help us...meh.. no... Poppy would probably be better help... lots more practice. Honestly, it would probably make life easier for her with the amount of times we come limping in...

I was snapped out of thoughts on who I should ask to teach me how to conjure a stretcher by the sight of my prat of a brother a little ways up the path. I instantly started glaring at him and walking faster in his direction.

"Ellie..." warned James.

"We'll get him back Ellie, but we have to get Sirius back to the school first." Remus tried to reason. Unfortunately, there was no reasoning with me at this point.

"NO." I said loudly storming off. My eyes were narrowed into slits, my breath heavy with anger as I quickly made my way toward that vile toad.

"YOU DEPLORABLE PIECE OF SCUM!" I screeched furiously as I came closer. My wand was now pointed dangerously at his face. It looked like Sirius already gave him a black eye, and possibly a broken nose. Nice work Paddy. Despite his battered face, he seemed rather pleased with himself.

His gang of shifty Slytherins backed up. I could tell that they were a little afraid of the screaming wild haired blonde in front of them. Rightfully so. Usually, people aren't all that phased when I'm upset, so this should be a good indication of how royally pissed I was. First Susan. Then Sirius. He was not getting away with this.

"What's got your wand in a knot Elizabeth?" Benny sneered with a callous laugh.

"YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT, YOU WORTHLESS COWARD!" I screamed so loud my voice broke.

"Are you going to hex me Ellie? " he laughed, "Curse me?" He asked, laughing coldly again. "You don't have it in you." He scoffed then smirked to his cowardly friends. Like hell I don't.

The next moment, before he knew what was happening, I sent a non-verbal stunning spell directly at his chest. He flew back and landed a couple feet away with a loud thunk. The Slytherins started pulling out their wands and moving closer to me. I ignored them. My eyes were set on Benny as I ran toward him, seething.

"If you know what's good for you, you will back away from her right now." Said a calm yet dangerous voice. I recognized that voice. It was Regulus Black.

I guess they listened to him, because I was completely uninhibited as I jumped onto Benny and started repeatedly punching him in the face. "You. No good. Cowardly. Piece of. SCUM!" I screamed between punches, angry tears leaking from my eyes and staining my cheeks. It was ironic really, considering Benny was the one who taught me how to throw a punch in the first place.

"Snugs. Snugs that's enough, love." Said a comforting, yet tired voice from behind me. I felt a large hand on my shoulder gently trying to pull me away from beating my brother to a pulp.

It took a moment for me to register who it was that was leading me away from my revenge. But then it clicked. "SIRIUS?!" I said in disbelief, whirling around to wrap my arms around him. He winced a little at my force. "Sirius! How-? Oh Merlin! We have to get you to the hospital wing!" I said worriedly.

"What about me?" Said the incredulous voice of a bloody and bruised Benjamin laying pathetically on the ground, clutching his very broken nose.

"You can have your friends help you." I spat.

As we walked away from the pit of snakes, I stopped briefly to look at Regulus and gave him a small smile and nod. A subtle thank you of sorts. He nodded back. He had some good left in him still... I wish I could say the same for Benny.

Sirius was conscious now, but was moving slow and still needed help from James and Remus getting up to the castle.

"Ellie, are you okay?" Sirius asked.

"I'm fine, knuckles kind of hurt, but other than that I'm fine." I told him. He nodded like he was trying to convince himself it was true. "Susan! I-I just left her there!" I said suddenly remembering.

"I caught up with her friends, they went to take care of her." Remus said.

"Oh.. okay good." I said relieved.

"Hang on, are we talking about Susan as in 'The Snogging Susan'?!" James asked.

"um.. yeah.." I said, "and uh don't call her that. She's not so bad. She said she felt bad about the whole thing with Sirius." I told the three boys who were just staring at me, purposely leaving out the bit about her being disappointed that I wasn't a two faced floozy.

"Wait. I'm sorry... did Elizabeth Ann Greengrass just say that Susan, the Susan she hated so much she wanted to punch her in the nose, was quote 'not so bad'?!" James exclaimed. "What the hell happened in those woods?!"

"We had a nice chat. She's not terrible. Not my favorite person, that would be Moony.." I said smirking as Sirius yelped 'HEY!' "but she's not some psycho evil girl from what I can tell." I shrugged. "I still have no clue what her last name is though."

"It's Travers." Remus informed. "El, do you know why they attacked her?" he asked. I told him what Susan had told me.

"That's sick." Sirius growled. "I don't care who she is. No one deserves that." He said shaking his head. "And Benny.." he started, anger in his eyes, "you have no idea how much I wanted to kill him after what he said about you Ellie." he said in a deadly low voice.

"What exactly did he say?" I asked. Sirius shook his head, looking forward, avoiding eye contact. "Tell me what he said!" I demanded. He shook his head again. "Good Godric! I'm a big girl, I can handle it!"

"I love you Ellie, but I'm not telling you, so stop asking. All you need to know was that it was disgusting and completely untrue." Sirius said calmly.


That evening, as I lay snuggled in cat form next to Sirius in his hospital bed, all I could think of was my brother.

Benny had always been a 'stick-in-the-mud' stickler for the rules. He cared way too much about his grades and his accomplishments, but I always thought he had focused on those things as a way to distract himself. Our mother, Genevieve Greengrass, passed away with dragon pox just before Christmas my second year, Benny's third. That was around the time when he got really intense about... well everything. But this was a side of him I had never seen before. I couldn't understand what had happened to him, why he was acting the way he was... but I was determined to find out.