Breakups are hard, especially to teenagers, who end up feeling like their lives are over. But no one, not even adults, can deny that they're hard. All that time spent with another person suddenly means nothing and is expected to be forgotten. It doesn't matter who ended the relationship, or if the other person didn't want it to end. One person is almost always left upset and brokenhearted.

Natalie was feeling those exact feelings still a week after Sirius decided to end their secret relationship. She suddenly found herself walking the halls of the castle alone where she used to walk them hand in hand with Sirius. She ate alone, she studied alone, and she sat in class alone. She hadn't been dumped by the rest of the Marauders, but Sirius had certainly made it clear that Natalie was officially shunned from the group.

All of those things aside, the one thing Natalie noticed most was how much she missed the little things. She was constantly thinking about his soft curly locks of dark hair, his soft but slightly calloused hands, his warm lips on hers…

Natalie shook her head to shoo the thoughts from her lonely brain. Looking down in front of her she saw that she hadn't taken down a single note during Charms. She had just scribbled, barely legible, the steps to the new spell to be learned for the next week when the old and tired professor dismissed the class. Natalie was pushing her messy roll of parchment into her shoulder bag, still distracted by the thoughts of Sirius diminishing in her head when she noticed someone come up behind her. As she turned around she stopped in surprise upon seeing two boys, one with sandy colored hair and pale skin and the other with messy jet black hair and glasses perched delicately on the bridge of his nose.

"Oh, hello," she said awkwardly, lifting her bag up onto her shoulder.

"Hello," Remus greeted cheerfully though his eyes were tired.

"Care to have lunch with us?" James asked, gesturing toward the classroom door.

Natalie hesitated. She knew that Sirius was angry with her and she did not want to give him an excuse to absolutely loath her. Besides, she didn't want to get James and Remus into any trouble with their friend, either.

The boys couldn't help but notice how the girl hesitated at the offer. Remus told her that it was okay, and maybe another time. James said, "Yeah, another time. Although, if you're nervous about what Sirius might think, you should know that we don't care. You're our friend, Nat, not just Padfoot's ex-girl."

What a simple thing to say, but it held so much meaning. She was their friend and they had become quite close over the past few months. James used the Marauder's nickname for her and proved that he knew her well enough to point out what she was thinking in her own head. And Natalie knew the two boys well enough to realize that they would not leave her alone until she started to be comfortable around them again.

"Alright, sure. I could go grab something to eat."

The boys grinned and the three made their way down to the Great Hall. They talked as if nothing at all had happened between her and Sirius. She was thankful for that; it took her mind off of how sad she had been over the last week. It gave her hope, also, that even if she and Sirius were no longer together that she might still be able to keep her friends and that part of her new life that she so adored.

She and the boys enjoyed their lunch together and the breath of relief from stress they all sighed. They ate their boiled potatoes and meats, laughed and shared stories of the last week. Hers were boring, though she left out the sad and miserable details; theirs were exciting, though they did their best to leave out all details of Sirius. Her feelings were mixed; she wanted to hear what he was up to and if he was secretly as sad as she was, but she also didn't want any other excuses to think about him.

Walking out of the Great Hall, Remus left to go study in the library, leaving Natalie and James to talk alone. The awkward silence didn't last long, not to Natalie's surprise as James seldom kept his thoughts to himself. He and Sirius were almost identical in that respect.

"So," he started saying, trying to gain all of Natalie's attention. How are you, really?"

"I've told you, I'm fine," she answered instantly, rolling her eyes.

"Liar."

Natalie looked at him seriously for just a moment, making a swift decision on whether or not she really wanted to share her feelings with him. She didn't but…

"I'm sad," she told him, feeling and sounding childish but being honest nonetheless.

His eyes went from sarcastic to soft and understanding in an instant. He looked at her curiously before saying, without caution for he knew they were good enough friends, "Why, though?"

"What do you mean, 'why'?" she retorted, taking offense.

"Well, I mean…well you chose the other guy, didn't you? You knew Sirius didn't want to keep you two a secret anymore."

Before she could stop herself, before she could remind herself that her own thoughts should probably not be publicized, she blurted out one word: "No!"

She had clapped her hand to her forehead before James had even mustered up the look of confusion he held on his face.

"No?" he repeated, trying to work out the mystery quickly in his brain. "Wait…you didn't?"

One person finding out her secret was one too many. Natalie grabbed James by the shoulder of his robes and dragged him to a quiet corner of the castle, not far from her own Ravenclaw common room.

James wasted no time. "You didn't choose the other guy?" he asked, really trying to hide his excitement and keep his voice low.

Natalie let out a sigh. "No, I broke up with him."

James' face lit up. "You have to tell Sirius! He'll be thrilled. I know right where he is, come on-"

Natalie pulled her hand out of James', who was trying to pull her back towards the entrance of the castle. "No, James."

He looked even more confused. "But why? You can both go back to normal now."

"James, I broke up with Jason a week ago," Natalie said, preparing to wait a moment for her friend to understand what she was saying.

Just as she thought, it took James several moment. When it dawned on him, he looked up at Natalie with a saddened look in his eyes and on his face. "You did it the night he broke up with you?"

She simply shrugged her shoulders, trying to act as if it wasn't a big deal. She knew she could be honest with James but for some reason, perhaps to protect herself from anymore unnecessary upset, she tried her hardest to disguise her heartache. "It's over now. I don't want to dwell on it."

After trying meekly to console her, James left Natalie to her lonesome, just as she was used to as of late. He wanted to perhaps take a walk around the castle with her, maybe talk about things, but she assured him that she was fine and that she actually needed time to study. That was true, Natalie had three rolls of parchment due in a week on the latest spell learned in Charms that she needed to attempt to make a dent in, not to mention the endless pile of star charts that she was constantly trying to catch up on, no matter how much she actually got done with in one night.

It seemed, though, that everyone else in the castle had the same great idea also. She couldn't seem to find Remus, or any other empty seat for that matter. The library was much too overcrowded, and no matter how hard the tiny woman of a librarian tried to hush the crowd of students, the murmurs and mumblings had overtaken her and turned into a low rumbling that could be heard even beyond the thick wooden doors.

Frustrated after searching the castle in every place she knew, from empty classrooms to supposedly deserted hallways to a desperate last attempt in the kitchens, Natalie bundled herself in several shirts and her only wool sweater and grabbed a few textbooks, rolls of parchment, ink and quill and hustled outside and to the edge of the Black Lake where her favorite tree was located.

Thanks to the weather becoming more and more chilled as the days went on, the tree had lost most of its leaves, the brown and orange foliage making crunching noises underneath Natalie's feet. Some people might have thought the landscape was dark and frightening, with the bare branches of the trees stark and black against the clear night sky, the moon full in the distance. On the contrary, Natalie found it extremely relaxing, leaning her back against the tree's trunk and sliding her body down onto the hard ground underneath. She was facing the lake, the bright moon reflecting off of its surface to give her just enough light to see her surroundings.

Natalie took out her wand and lit the tip so that she could read her book and her writing on the parchment. With the wand in her left hand pointing toward her line of sight, she started to read, take notes, and write lines of intelligent words that eventually turned into paragraphs which eventually turned into entire pages. She started to mute the sounds of nature when her concentration became more intense. All that she saw were the writing on the paper of the book and her own handwriting flowing out from the tip of the quill. Her mind more at ease now, the words started coming to her quicker without her having to take nearly as many breaks-

Natalie jumped so violently that the book and parchment that had been resting comfortably on either one of her knees crashed to the ground with a loud clap as the book closed shut. She whipped her head around to where the forest was, almost subconsciously dropping the quill and switching her wand from her left hand to her dominant right hand. She stared into the dark forest, hardly moving from fear and adrenaline except for the slight rise and fall of her chest as she tried to steady her breathing.

She didn't know if there was actually anything to fear but she tried hard to remember her spells from Defense Against the Dark Arts just as a precaution. She could have sworn she heard howling…

"Mate…"

The hesitation in James' voice made Sirius look up. Seeing the look on his friend's face told him that there was something wrong. Pulling on his cloak, he stood up and walked to where the dark haired boy was standing.

"What? We already knew it was a full moon tonight, you scared?" he said, making sure his sarcasm was evident.

"Not that, you git. That."

James was pointing to a tree by the Black Lake, the one he had waited under not a few weeks ago to try to talk to Natalie. Sirius squinted, hoping the action would improve his regular humanly eyesight. He saw someone standing to the left of the tree, wand held tight at their side, a wave of blonde hair reflected from the moonlight.

"Is that…"

"Natalie," James finished, his voice grave and his face worried.

"Why the hell is she outside?" Sirius asked no one in particular, his voice rising.

"Don't yell," James reminded, gesturing to a door on the second floor of the building they were taking shelter in.

"He's taken the potion," Sirius said.

"Any little thing could set him off, you know that," James said in a scolding, yet hushed, voice.

"She must have figured out what we're doing here." Sirius started toward the door, pulling the handle loudly without thinking. "We have to get her back inside."

"Padfoot!" James whispered hurriedly.

Both boys stopped dead in their tracks. They heard a deep growling from the room upstairs, right before the door swung open, ripping one of the hinges off the wall and launching the creature behind it down the stairs and out the open door.

Natalie had just begun to gather up her things when she heard the loud bang. Dropping her possessions again, her wand still tight in her hand, she turned again. This time, however, she knew she wasn't imagining things. She was, in fact, one hundred percent certain that she was not imagining the giant creature bounding toward her at an incredible speed.

She had always heard about the amazing intuition that human beings had about them. Flight or fight was purely instinctual, and though she was waiting anything but patiently, her mind and body seemed to be frozen, unable to process what was surely going to be an imminent death.

Thankfully, her body seemed to become aware of the situation with just enough time to throw herself to the ground, avoiding a painful collision with the massive thing that had launched itself into the air just at that moment.

Her wand was no longer in her hand. Where had it gone? Natalie was frantic, scraping her fingers across the earth around her trying to feel for the thin piece of wood. She gave up when she heard the thing behind her grunt. Turning slowly, hoping that its eyesight was terrible and wouldn't see her if she didn't make any sudden movements, she finally got a good look at her attacker.

No, it would have incredible eyesight. And a seriously good sense of smell, at that. The werewolf knew exactly where she was and it was making unwavering eye contact. Natalie swallowed, her throat as dry as the leaves she had walked on just a short time before. The werewolf started making a low growling noise in the back of its throat.

Wait. Natalie turned around, her back toward the wolf. She was wrong, the werewolf wasn't the one growling. The fact might have made her feel a bit more comforted except for the fact that the growling belonged to something else. A large, muscular black dog was standing in front of her now, its eyes shifting from her to the wolf behind her. It was the one making the growling noise, though she couldn't be sure who it was directed to. Perhaps it and the werewolf were friends?

She didn't have much time to consider the possibilities of this thought as the werewolf launched itself over Natalie and against the dog, hitting the back of her head with one of its paws in the process. The force of the blow knocked her onto her face, her hands blocking some of the shock. The sharp sting of pain told her that her hands had been injured, though not badly enough that she couldn't use them to push herself back up and onto her feet.

The world spun. She was dizzy and used the tree beside her to lean against when her feet wouldn't move forward. Natalie closed her eyes and touched her hand to her left temple, using her fingers to put just a bit of pressure, hoping that it would ease the headache threatening to unfold.

When she opened her eyes, the black dog was nowhere in sight, though the werewolf was suddenly focused on Natalie again. Her body stiffened, in full and complete knowledge that she was without a wand and was not skilled in the art of Muggle fighting. The wolf started to make its way toward her, slowly, teasing her with the pain that it was about to make her feel. She saw it stop and lean back on its haunches, preparing its body to pounce on her and begin its mauling…

But that never happened. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and moved her head to the left just in time to see the black dog reappear, with a large deer with even larger antlers not far behind it.

The scene seemed to be going in slow motion. The dog was in midair as she turned her head, and she saw the surprise in its eyes as its paws made contact with the side of her face. It was clear that the dog had not intended to hit her there, but it didn't matter. She felt her flesh sting and break under its sharp claws, felt the dog try to pull back but not quick enough. She fell to the ground, the dog on top of her and for the first time got a good look at the creature. Though she felt the blood from her own body start to flow down her neck, and though she began to feel her breathing labor, she couldn't stop looking into the eyes of the dog. Where had she seen them before?

The dog's gray eyes were the last thought that Natalie had before the world left her and she was thrown into a land of darkness. Her pain ebbed away, to her satisfaction, and she let her body go limp.