The Women Loved by Two Men: The Covered Past

Disclaimer: All characters, but Lizzie and a few other minor characters are owned by J.K. Rowling. We are of course not receiving any profit of this work of fiction.

Chapter Fourteen: "The Curse"

Lizzie slowly came awake, knowing her dreams of climbing upon Sirius Black's lap and proceeding to snog him were not just dreams. She pulled the covers over her head, not wanting to face the rest of Hogwarts, not wanting to face all the kids laughing at her for falling all over the notorious playboy under the influence of a well brewed love potion. She berated herself, she should have known better, she was much smarter than this. But she'd been tired and the offered cup of tea from the boys sounded lovely. Oh, how wrong she'd been.

"Lizzie, are you awake?" Came Amy's voice from behind the drawn curtains. "Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm awake." Lizzie pulled the covers back just enough for them to hear her clearly. "I'm okay, but not leaving my bed today."

Standing close by, the other girls glanced at each other, knowing they would be dragging her down to breakfast this morning. "Come on Lizzie, where's that Gryffindor courage?"

Lizzie paused for a moment before calling back. "It got left behind when I stupidly drank a cup of tea last night."

"Oh, so you're just going to let Black get the last laugh?"

"Hell no." Came the quick sharp reply of the instant anger at him for embarrassing her. "He's going to get it good too."

"Well, the first step is getting you out of bed." Lily pulled back the curtains and started to pull her friend out of bed. "Come on Lizzie, it'll be okay."

Alice came to her other side, giving her a quick hug. "We won't let anyone say anything. Just go on as if it doesn't bother you and it'll die down."

Lizzie sighed, knowing they were right, but still dreaded going down to breakfast.

"How about a kiss?" One of the Ravenclaw boys taunted her as they settled into a class later that day. "You nearly gave out to Black, one now won't hurt."

Lizzie clinched her fists together, but managed to keep her wits together and calmly took out her parchment, quills and other class supplies.

"Come on babe, one little kiss."

"I'll give you a kiss, you brute." Alice's wand was suddenly in the guys face. "Now back off or I'll make you."

The student opened his mouth to make a strong retort, but seeing the Professor entering from the other side of the room, quickly went to sit down in his own seat.

"Good riddance." Alice muttered underneath her breath as she sat down next to Lizzie. Leaning close to her, she whispered. "Are you okay?"

Lizzie nodded, smiling her thanks as the bell rung and the class started.

Over the next couple of weeks, Lizzie learned to ignore the scathing, side comments and jokes that floated around the school about her. Despite the fact it hurt to be laughed and jeered at, but lashing back would make it even worse. She'd often cried out her frustrations into a pillow later that same night. Besides, if anyone tried to start something or were particularly cruel Amy, Alice and Lily stood up for her and handled it. Of course when Lily threatened to start taking house points away and once realizing Lizzie wasn't going to make a show out of it, everything started to die down.

Through this, Lizzie had scoured a victory on the fact she was showing her face around meals, classes and the common room starting the morning after, but she did lay low during the next month or so, barely seen outside of those areas. She found it quite easier just to do her studying and such, letting the other students do their own thing. She also spent much time in the library, using it to prepare herself for much more than her Owls and Newts, but for becoming an Auror.

But revenge was never quite put on the back burner. She often thought of trying to submarine one of Black's many relationships, but she didn't want to sink to his low level of existence. She didn't try to plan anything, just somehow knew her time would come and it would work perfectly when it did. She couldn't explain why she felt this way or how she could get revenge on the masters of pranksters without planning anything, but only knew it would. She seemed, in matters more than just dueling, had learned to trust her very reliable instincts.

"Lizzie are you coming?" She heard Amy calling, breaking her thoughts about Black.

Lizzie shook her head, almost having forgotten that today was another Hogsmeade Saturday. "I'll be right there. Where are Lily and Alice?"

"Meeting their dates." Amy watched as Lizzie put her shoes and grabbed a light jacket, winter having paved the way into spring. "You okay?"

Lizzie smiled slightly. "I'll be fine, just lost track of time."

Amy, as well as the others, had been concerned about Lizzie the past month or so, but didn't say anything about it, only asking. "So where do we want to go first?"

Lizzie shrugged as they started to make their way down through the castle and onto the grounds, eventually leading them to Hogsmeade. "Some chocolate sounds really good right now."

"Even if it's only nine in the morning?"

Lizzie laughed, seemingly the first time in a while. "Especially when it's nine in the morning."

"Hello ladies." Remus had come up from somewhere behind them. "I hope you don't mind me joining you."

Both of the girls smiled. "Of course not, not unless you don't want to eat a lot of chocolate."

Remus pretended to be shocked. "Not eat chocolate?"

Laughing even more, the three made their way into the small village, Lizzie feeling better than she had in quite a while.

Meanwhile, while their dates were powdering their noses, James and Sirius quickly ducked into Zonko's for a quick refill of their pranking supplies. They were just checking out when James caught sight of Lizzie and Amy walking towards one of the pubs. "Hey Padfoot, Lizzie still laying pretty low?"

Sirius glanced over his shoulder as he was checking his stuff out to catch sight of her dark hair disappearing behind a shop door. "Yea she is. I'm still looking over my shoulder though. She's liable to pull something on me."

James placed his items up on the counter. "I wouldn't know about that. Lizzie always managed to allow me to think she's forgotten about it or let it go, but months later she certainly got me pretty good."

"Well, I'll just have to keep watching won't I?" Sirius smirked. "Come on, the girls will be wondering where we got to."

James just shook his head, wondering if he should stay out of this one. He was beginning to get the idea that there was more to this game than both Lizzie and Sirius thought. "Oh they could be in there for hours." But he still followed his friend out the door and down the street.

The two Marauders soon met up with their dates before going over to Honeydukes, where they spent most of the rest of the day before heading back to the castle. It was on the way back, when Sirius saw Lizzie laughing at something Amy was telling her. Remus was only a few steps over, shaking his head at whatever they were saying. He watched her for several long moments, still wondering why those kisses, committed under the influence of his love potion, could still be felt.

As the semester continued onward, emotions began to rise higher as the calender came closer and closer to the end of semester, especially for the fifth years who were preparing for their Owls. The Professors seemed to sense and see this more than the students and the extra work continued to pile on. As a result, Lizzie, Lily, Amy and Alice started spending more and more of their time studying in the common rooms, libraries and anywhere else they could, often late into the night.

Of course, before any of them knew it, their Owls were upon them and tensions were extremely high. It was probably the first time since starting Hogwarts that all four girls actually couldn't wait till the term was over so they could go home.

"Let's go down by the lake." Lizzie suggested as they left their DADA Owl, feeling more than a bit drained from their tests.

"Brilliant idea." Lily added as they shuffled through the crowd of students that seemed to have the same idea. "Some fresh air sounds rather lovely."

So Amy, Lily and Lizzie headed towards the lake as Alice went off to find Frank. The three girls meandered to the edge of the lake, taking off their shoes and socks, cooling their heels in the shallow water. For the next little while they talked mostly about what they might be doing this summer and how glad they were that the end of their tests were in sight. Eventually they slipped their shoes and socks back on, sitting down on the rocky shore, allowing the sun to warm their legs. It wasn't until a loud roar of laughter that disturbed their peaceful reprise that they turned away from watching the giant squid sunbathing.

"What in merlin..." Lily seemed quite furious as they witnessed Potter and Black humiliating Snape.

Lizzie and Amy, who were ticked themselves, watched as Lily charged towards the boys, drawing her wand. "I almost can't believe she's still friends with him, especially as his friends are all turning into Death Eaters." Amy whispered to Lizzie as they watched Lily demand that Potter and Black leave Snape alone.

"I know, but maybe she sees something that's not there. I don't know, they did know each other from before Hogwarts." Lizzie shrugged it off, not being able to explain it any more than Amy could. Just then their attention was drawn back more to the scene in front of them as Snape called their friend a mudblood, closely followed by Lily telling Potter off before stalking from the scene.

Lizzie and Amy exchanged glances before turning to follow after Lily, hoping to settle her down. She sometimes could be very sensitive about her and Snape's odd friendship. But James' voice stopped Lizzie cold.

"Who wants to see me take off Snivelly's pants?"

Without even thinking about what she was doing or getting herself into, Lizzie pushed her way through the jeering crowd, drawing out her wand. Without saying a word, she immediately released Snape, drawing everyone's attention to her.

"Hey Lizzie's what's this?" James asked casually, still acting at the top of cool, barely noticing Snape was laying on the ground trying to find his wand.

"Giving you a taste of your own medicine."

James opened his mouth to fire back at her, but Sirius stepped out from behind him, holding up his hand.

"It's okay Prongs." Sirius sauntered toward Lizzie, letting a few loose strands of hair fall onto his face. "I'll handle her."

Lizzie raised an eyebrow, wondering how he was going to charm her out of telling them off.

"Now, Lizzie, we are just having a bit of fun. Nothing's wrong with that."

"Humiliating another student? That's real mature Black, but then again, you've proven that you only use curses and potions to get what you want."

"You know Lizzie," Despite her comments, Sirius seemed to take it all in stride. "with all this game playing, maybe we should just call it, since we really know what this is all about right now. Just admit I've won and you really like me."

Quite disgusted by his come on, Lizzie took a step back from him, raising her wand at him.

"Come now baby." Sirius made a move to draw her into his arms. "No need for that."

Lizzie rolled her eyes, mumbling something underneath her breath that Sirius didn't quite catch. He immediately dropped to the ground, moaning loudly in pain.

"What the hell..." James started towards her, wand raised as well, but before he could even curse or hex her, Lizzie mumbled a spell again, dropping James to ground, crossing his legs, as if protecting himself.

Lizzie glanced around, seeing both Snape and Peter quickly scurrying from the scene. The others, still quite interested in the events, but obviously not wanting to get involved, slowly started to back away.

Lizzie circled around the boys, who were still moaning. "Now how does it feel to be absolutely humiliated in front of everyone? Lily's right, you two are arrogant jerks. Right now you boys are really lucky. Next time I might not be so nice. You see the curse I just demonstrated has several levels of intensity and I've just applied a lessor one. I hate to see what the others would do to you." Lizzie tossed her hair back behind her shoulder, preparing to leave, but leaned down to Sirius. "I guess our game isn't over with yet. I just won another round. Well I guess I'll be seeing you around boys."

Lizzie was about to head back inside the castle but she caught sight of Remus still sitting underneath a tree, reading. Still quite fussed, she turned to him. "So you were just sitting here doing nothing the entire time?"

Remus didn't lower his book, even feeling her penetrating, sharp gaze through the pages. "There weren't really doing..."

"Oh please Remus..." Lizzie rolled her eyes in exasperation. "I still can't believe you allowed them to do this."

"Well, it's over now." Remus finally lowered his book, hoping he wasn't about to be cursed and seeing her wand away, he glanced around to see both James and Sirius still on the ground. "I hope no permanent damage has been done?"

"I didn't curse them hard enough to make them sterile if that's what you mean."

Remus blushed slightly at her rather blunt words. "That's good to hear."

Lizzie couldn't help but grin at the two still on the ground, pleased that the curse had quite a kick to it. "I should tell them that they won't be deflowering any unsuspecting girls for at least a week. Maybe a week of chastity will straighten them out." But as Lizzie caught sight of Sirius staring at her, gray eyes glimmering darkly with anger, she quickly changed her mind. "Then again, maybe they won't. It seems it will take much more than abstinence to make those two idiots grow up."

Remus wasn't quite sure what to reply to Lizzie, as he didn't want to get between the oddly growing feud of Sirius and Lizzie. Though he found he didn't need to as Lizzie took one last glance toward the boys before heading back to the castle.

Of course during the next couple weeks that was left during the school year, the students had wanted to gossip about what had happened. However, the last minute finals and papers as well as the Owls and Newts kept the students quite preoccupied and most were quite disappointed when they couldn't spend hours wondering what curse Wellington used and how she sometimes seemed to be one step above the popular Marauders. Luckily for the students the rest of the term went by quickly and everyone was extremely relieved that it was all over. So before they knew it, everyone was packing up and heading home for another summer break.

"What are you going to be up to this summer Padfoot?" Remus asked as they were lounging in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express heading back towards King's Cross.

"Getting Lizzie back, that's what." Sirius growled as he looked up from a pranking book. "It still sometimes hurts to pee."

"She certainly got us good, I'll have to give her that." James crossed his legs, still feeling it too. "That curse of hers is potent enough to take down Voldermort."

Remus almost looked amused. "Actually Sirius I wasn't referring to the ongoing, winner takes Hogwarts between you and Lizzie, I was just making conversation." He smiled when Sirius mimicked his words. "Anyway, what I was going to mention is that my house is open if you guys want to come over sometime."

"We should get together then." Peter put him, not looking up from his gummy worms. "Mum and I will be gone half the summer."

"We'll I hope we can do something." James said, running his hands through his hair as Lily walked by making rounds. "Mum and Dad will most likely be working all summer, so I'm sure they won't mind if you mates crash there too."

"Good." Sirius put in, grumbling again, his temperament obviously not good today. "I'll be up to my ears in Death Eaters. At least one of my cousins have joined and that's all Regulus talks about. I'm sick of hearing about it."

The three boys glanced at each other, well knowing about Sirius' home life, but since the war seemed to be kicking up a few notches, it obviously had gotten extremely bad. "Have you ever thought about leaving?"

Sirius looked at Remus like he'd never seen him before. "As in move out? Where would I go? Who'd rent a flat to a sixteen year old boy with no money?"

Remus shrugged slightly. "I guess all three of us could share you during the breaks."

Sirius shrugged it off. "Don't worry about it guys. I'll just lock myself up in my room and visit you when I can. I'll survive."

The other guys didn't look like they quite believed him, but let the subject change to other things as Remus left to go do his turn at the prefect rounds.

"See you next term." The terminal was full of kids waving and hugging each other, as well as a huge assortment of siblings, parents, and grandparents picking up their students. Sirius Black made his way through the masses to where his parents stood towards the back corner of the platform. As he pulled his trunk along, he caught sight of Lizzie about to join her parents and older brother. She eyed him for a moment as if expecting something to come crashing down upon her. Raising an eyebrow, he smirked at her before walking away, knowing she may have one up on him, but the game was far from over and the summer was certainly fair game.