A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Hillary, my friend and inspiration for Alyson. Her continued readership is appreciated. :D Susanna's POV.

-C

Sirius was right, breaking the law and getting away with it was exhilarating.

Of course, I would never tell him that, because that would alert him to the fact that I'd broken the law, and if too many people knew that my reputation would be ruined, and everything in the world of academia rests on reputation.

Instead, I thought it to myself as the last of the Slytherins we'd hit was discharged from the hospital wing. It happened to be Snape.

Apparently, he was as sickly as he looked, and didn't get on well with our treatment of him.

Not that I particularly cared about Snape's well-being, but I did care about him finding out I was involved. If I was being honest with myself, I was more afraid of him than of Azkaban.

As I made my way down to breakfast, he glared at me and I froze for a moment, sure he knew it was me.

"I know it was your stupid little friends," he growled at me. "You tell Black and Potter that they're not going to get away with this."

For a moment I was too stunned to properly process what he'd said.

Thankfully, Lily came to the rescue of the Marauders, because I was proving a very incapable heroine.

"They didn't do it, Severus," she said coldly, stepping up beside me with Leah in tow. "I happen to know that they were in Gryffindor Tower all night that night, so they couldn't have been the ones. Surely you and your... friends have other enemies."

Before he had a chance to retort or grovel at her feet or whatever it was he was planning on doing since Lily had just talked to him, Lily led us off to the Great Hall for breakfast.

"I wish Potter and Black hadn't gotten themselves such a reputation," she sighed. "Even when they clearly didn't do it everyone thinks they did."

We sat down together at Gryffindor table and started putting food on our plates.

"I wonder who did," Leah said slowly. "I would have thought it was Peter working on their behalf, too, with Constantin involved, but Remus assures me that he and Peter were sleeping. But who else could have gotten into their dormitory?"

It was so hard, doing great work and not even being able to take the credit for it. The sacrifice of genius, Sirius had once called it.

"Maybe it was someone in their dormitory," I said in my most thoughtful voice. "I mean, despite what Sirius always says, not all Slytherins are created equal."

"Did I hear my name on your tongue, lovely?" said the voice of the devil himself as he slid into the seat beside me, grinning.

"You're in an awfully good mood this morning," Leah said warily.

"Did you see the look on Snivelly's face?" Sirius said with a bark of laughter. "That's enough to put anyone with sanity in a good mood. I'd love to shake the hand of the girl that did that."

I stiffened.

"Girl?" Lily said with frown. "What makes you think it was a girl?"

"Oh, it's just a hunch, that's all," Sirius said, but I knew from the way he put his hand on my leg that it was anything but a hunch.

Sirius Black knew I'd broken the law, and I had no idea what he would do with that information, but I knew he'd not make my life any easier by it. The other Marauders showed up and I had hoped that Sirius had quite forgotten the whole thing by the end of breakfast, but he pulled me aside as we were leaving the Great Hall and into an abandoned classroom.

"Welcome to the club," he said with a grin, and I scowled at him.

"How did you know?" I demanded, and he winked.

"You forgot a little something that I'm almost sad you forgotten," he said teasingly, suggestively, even, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out a bit of parchment.

I groaned.

The Marauder's Map.

He was right, how could I have forgotten that he could see everything I was doing?

"So what is it that you want from me, then?" I said cautiously. There had to be something. Even Sirius Black didn't do something for nothing, even for me.

"Oh, darling," he sighed with a grin, "let's just say that you owe me, all right?"

I raised my eyebrows.

Dangerous as that very sentiment could be, especially with Sirius, it felt like I was getting off easy. I didn't want to owe Sirius, but I realized very quickly that he already knew what he wanted, he just was waiting for the right moment to get it.

And that was more than a little unsettling.

"Fine," I finally sighed. "Fine, keep your secrets. Merlin knows I've got enough of my own."

I would let him try to puzzle that out as I went to the library. Of course, he would know that Remus had set me up in correspondence with his werewolf friend, but what he didn't know was that this friend and I had set up a deep confiding, almost flirtatious relationship. Whatever Sirius was thinking my secrets were, I was almost certain he wasn't expecting that, and it made me smile a little to myself as I walked away.

No, I couldn't keep all my secrets from Sirius, and I never kept any too long, but I still could keep a few, for a time, and that was a happy thought.

I made my way to the library, hoping Sirius was watching me go, puzzled, picturing to myself his face when he was confused and smiling a bit to myself.

To me, he was always more attractive when he didn't look like he knew everything, rare though that was. Resisting the urge to check if he was actually wearing that expression, I continued on, not wanting to be late, not that Zola would notice.

Zola was, in fact, a Gryffindor in the same year as the Marauders and Leah and Alyson and Lily and so on, but she spent so much time in the library that her possible companions at any given time could be counted on one hand. I was only included in this because she was, contrary to the popular belief that I was, the research queen of Hogwarts. She was, in fact, brilliant.

Zola Hilton spent much time in the library, pouring over histories and tomes written in such ancient runic dialects that even I struggled with them sometimes (when she came to me for help). She was working, in fact, on a book. She'd already written several articles, although she seemed to have very little interest in publishing them, much to Professor McGonagall's dismay. Her book, actually, was to be a complete history of the founding of Hogwarts, even more detailed and comprehensive for its period than the work of Bathilda Bagshot, famed historian.

She actually had tea with Bathilda Bagshot sometimes, which made me insanely jealous, not because I cared about history, but because she was the most well-published witch in our era.

"Hi, Zola," I said, sliding into the small alcove of the library that had become, more or less, her cave of brilliance in her last few years at Hogwarts. It was almost strange to think that she would be vacating it in less than a years' time. "How's your morning?"

"Here," she said with a smile, pushing an edited copy of my manuscript across the table. "My morning is well, and yours?"

"It was better before I saw how much pink ink you put on this thing," I said teasingly, flipping through the pages that seemed nearly soaked with the ink which was her editing trademark.

"It wasn't all that bad," she said with a friendly smile. "Most of it is just suggestion. And anyway, you did ask."

It was true, I had asked her to basically editorially shred my essay, partly because I knew she would do it anyway and I wanted to mentally prepare myself for it, and partly because I was more than a bit worried about publishing and wanted a seasoned essayist who wasn't an all-knowing adult to give me their best advice. One can't be squeamish about such things.

"True," I told her with a smile, sitting down and flipping through the manuscript. It did seem to be mostly suggestion, which was heartening.

Although, perhaps it shouldn't have been heartening, because Zola had a tendency to put things in the nicest way possible, so recommendations and suggestions from her were really, 'This needs to be done.'

Not wanting to be rude, I then glanced over at the book she had open.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Surprisingly," Zola replied with a small smile, "it's a first edition of Hogwarts, A History. Batty's loaning it to me."

I wasn't sure what was making me more jealous, the fact that Zola could use Bathilda Bagshot's nickname or the fact that they were loaning each other things.

"Anything useful?" I asked, swallowing my issues with the jealousy and returning to my interest in her work, which was genuine, if not particularly flared that day. After all, I had things happening later to be mentally preoccupied with.

"Not terribly," Zola admitted, frowning slightly at the book. "But there are a few things here and there that are different or new. At least, to a reader of this book."

That is to say, it was not new information to Zola. I was actually beginning to wonder whether she would be able to finish her book, with the amount of information she had already exhausted on Hogwarts. But then, just when I thought Zola was no longer full of surprises, she would come up with something incredibly shocking and prove me wrong.

So I held my piece on her book and waited as always to see her work her incredible skills on the whole project.

"How's life?" I finally asked, pulling out my own quill and ink to go over the edited manuscript while I had nothing else to do.

Zola gushed about her boyfriend, Linos Mason, who was her only social life apart from myself, as far as I knew. Then again, she was at least friendly with the Gryffindor girls in her year, so I tried not to pass that particular judgment, knowing that Zola always had more surprises up her sleeve.

Honestly, she had been dating Linos for about as long as I could remember, certainly as long as I'd known her personally, and everyone who thought about either of them at all was certain that he would propose to her on graduation. That is, everyone but Zola.

She maintained that they were probably going to continue as they were until he could no longer stand her scholarly habits, and that they would probably have to live apart anyway, to satisfy both his career aspirations and her research needs.

But I was sure that she was underestimating how much Linos loved her.

It was beautiful, actually, the way they were together, which not many people got to see. I'd long wanted to find something so good for myself, which had seemed impossible with the fluctuations in my own love life always seeming to be on the negative.

Speaking of my love life, I did have an appointment to keep, I realized as I glanced almost habitually at my watch. I was meeting the mystery letter writer and deciding what I was going to do about the confessions of affection he had given me. I was already aware of blushing a bit when I cut off Zola and said, "Sorry, but I just remembered I've got someone to meet. I'll go over this and give you the next draft when I finish, okay?"

"Sure!" she said with her sweet smile and a wave as I carefully put the manuscript in my bag and hurried away to the Prefect's Bath.

I caught my breath and put my bag on the driest part of floor by my feet where the edge of the giant bath-pool thing was. My mind began to reel as I wondered who was going to meet me, and to increase the anticipation I turned away from the door, my ears pricked carefully in case of an entrance so I could be prepared and not doing something stupid.

I walked across to the nearest mirror and began to consider my appearance.

Generally speaking I liked the way I looked, but I had my good days and my bad days like anyone else. Thankfully, this was one of my good days, I found as I ran my fingers through my slightly-wavy hair which was growing increasingly wavy with the humidity of the room. Leah's hair did that too, but I liked it better than she did.

I had just begun to run my finger across my lips, trying to decide whether or not to put on any lipstick when Remus suddenly appeared in the mirror and I jumped when he said my name, his eyes burning with a light I couldn't recall seeing in them ever before. I would have shuddered, but I was too stunned to move.

"Remus?" I whispered. "I... you... I'm just... Did you...?"

"I'm here to see you, Susanna," Remus said softly, taking a step towards me, and I had no idea what to do. Wasn't I supposed to be meeting the letter writer? Was something wrong? Was he ill? Why was Remus there in his place?

"Oh," I said, feeling a bit stupid about not thinking of something better to say. If he hadn't been watching me so intently in the mirror I probably would have taken the opportunity to admire the way the light in the room made his tired face seem almost... sexy.

"Susanna," he said, and suddenly I realized that I hadn't yet told him to call me Suzy. Was it the strange nature of the situation I was finding myself in, unsure of what exactly what was going on? Or was it the fact that Remus looked and smelled so good and my name sounded so very good when he said it like that?

And he had gotten much closer, close enough that I could smell his comforting scent. It was all I could do not to turn around and bury my face in his shoulder and just breathe in forever.

"I'm not sure I understand," I said softly. "How did you know I was here?"

It was a stupid question, of course. He had that map, the one that I knew so well. If he wanted to find me any time he just had to search the map for my name.

"Because," he said softly, taking a step closer, so close that I could almost feel his chest on my back, his eyes locked with mine in the mirror. "I told you to come here."

My mind was whirring as I turned to face him, realizing vaguely that his hand was on my arm, stroking up to my shoulder with a gentle touch. Perhaps I should have been enjoying that sensation, of his tender fingers on my skin, but instead I blinked at him, searching his amber eyes for some sort of explanation.

"But... but... You didn't," I said numbly, still trying to sort things out. "Your friend, he did. The one who's been writing to me. The werewolf."

There was a small flicker in his eyes, but whatever it was, I didn't have time to register the change before they were back to how they had been, still burning with that strange fire I couldn't name.

"No, Susanna," he said softly, his fingertips now on my collarbone as he held my gaze. "I did. There was no friend. I'm the one who has been writing to you. I'm the werewolf." He took a step closer, his fingers tracing up my neck. "I'm in love with you."

His lips were so close I could almost taste his breath. It appeared to me that I had two options. There was certainly a part of me that wanted to lean forward into his touch and press my lips to his, taking full advantage of the room we were in and how absolutely delicious he smelled and the fact that I could still feel tingling where his hand had trailed from my arm to my neck. The other option was to take a step back, to demand he explain exactly what was going on, and to process everything before I actually decided to do anything at all. There was an equally large part of me - namely my confused brain - that was demanding that I do this instead.

Things certainly were going too quickly and suddenly and I needed to figure out what to do, to make a decision. His lips moved a bit closer to mine and between that and my racing mind it felt as though the world was spinning. He was the letter writer? He loved me?

But didn't I love him? Why would this be a strange, difficult thing to grasp? Was it because I thought him indifferent to me? Was it because I thought he was pushing me away?

Was there anything more important than the delicious scent that was threatening to take me over?

I thought his lips might be descending toward mine, although it might have been because the room was spinning. I needed to make a decision, and I needed to do it fast, because regrets happen when people just let life happen to them, as good or bad as that might end up being.

Between the smell and feel and whirling in my brain I then did the only sensible thing I could do, the only right decision, it seemed in the moment:

I grabbed my bag from my feet and bolted out the door.