'A friend in need is a friend indeed.'

A Joke Gone a Bit Too Far

Helen avoided Sirius (as he did her) like the plague over the next few weeks. They were both very confused by their two kisses that night and didn't know how they felt about it themselves, let alone worrying what the other party thought of it. Whenever they did cross each other's paths, they avoided eye contact, but were more polite to each other than they had ever been in their lives, causing much speculation as to what had happened when they disappeared after the infamous bottle affair. Soon enough, however, they reverted to their normal selves. Sirius continued to have short-lived affairs with the many willing girls of Hogwarts and became his normal cocky self, incensing Helen and making her feel stupid for the tender feelings she had developed towards him that night. This led to her having more 'distractions' than ever- something which, in turn, maddened Sirius more than he could ever have imagined.

'Just a few more metres to the desk…' Helen thought to herself, gritting her teeth in determination. She was carrying a very high and heavy load of books and could only just see over the top of them.

Her hopes of reaching her desk, however, were shattered as she felt someone colliding with her, causing all of the books to topple down.

'Oh, I'm so sorry. Here let me help you,' Sirius said, bending down quickly and gathering the books.

Helen glared at him, certain that he had done it on purpose.

'Why don't you watch where you're going, Black?' she said acidly, also bending to get the books and snatching them from his grasp.

Sirius looked up at Helen, noticing for the first time that it was she who had been carrying the books.

'I said I was sorry. There's no need to act like a frigid bitch about it,' he said, annoyed.

'Yeah- coming from you that apology must have been so sincere. If you're going to pull a prank on me, at least have the decency to do it when I have a chance to defend myself,' she snapped, balancing herself as she walked quickly away with the many books, leaving Sirius to stare after her feeling slightly hurt and very frustrated.

Helen was beginning to grow very frustrated. She still had a potions essay to write for the next day and she was very unsuccessful in trying to finish her transfiguration essay on animagi. Sighing, she snapped the book which she was looking through moodily shut. The fact that, for reasons unbeknownst to her, Sirius had decided to study in the library on the desk behind her did not help her mood. Although he did not speak to her or disturb her in any way, his mere presence was unsettling.

Frustrated, Helen stood up abruptly and walked to the nearest library shelf in a desperate bid to find a book which could help her on her essay. She saw one: 'The Animagus, an Analysis,' on the top shelf- far beyond her reach. Sighing, she got up on a chair but was still just too short to reach the book. She jumped and managed pulled it out a little.

---

Sirius, meanwhile, had noticed Helen's foul temper and watched, amused, as she became increasingly more livid because she could not reach a book. He wondered why she did not simply summon it to her as he knew her to be perfectly capable of doing so but then decided that it probably must have had something to do with her muggle-background. He pondered going to offer her assistance in reaching the book, but then remembered her acrid replies to him earlier that day when he accidentally knocked over her books and decided against helping her. It was as he remembered this that he saw Helen jumping to reach the book and a most wicked idea sprung to his mind.

He waited for Helen to jump again before magically shifting her chair to the side.

---

Helen's eyes widened in shock when she realised that she had not landed on the chair yet and was rapidly falling to a very painful crash. She quickly reached out and clung to the shelf to prevent herself from falling any further. Heart beating wildly and clinging to the unsteady shelf, Helen looked down to the floor to try and find her chair, wondering how it had moved so far away. She wished she could get to her wand, but did not want to risk falling.

'Can someone please help me,' she called, her voice shaking nervously. A boy in the nearest table rushed to her aid but he was too late- Helen screamed as the shelf which was holding onto suddenly became unstable and began fell forwards, hitting the next shelf and then the next in a domino-like effect.

Helen's heart was beating wildly as she straightened herself up, unhurt, and surveyed, with a heavy heart, the damage which she had created.

'HELEN ASTERIA!' screamed Madam Pince, running up to Helen and looking more livid than anyone in history had ever seen her.

Helen cringed, waiting for it.

'WHAT ON EARTH DID YOU DO? ALL THE LIBRARY BOOKS! ALL MESSED UP… DO YOU KNOW IT HAS TAKEN ME A LIFETIME TO SORT THESE IN CORRECT ORDER AND NOW YOU…YOU…YOU HAVE COMPLETELY RUINED THEM! YOU SHAMEFUL GIRL! YOU ARE A DISGRACE! FIFTY HOUSE POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR AND YOU ARE TO FIX THIS MESS TONIGHT, SO HELP YOU GOD, IF YOU WANT TO REMAIN IN THIS SCHOOL,' she screamed, eyes popping out of her head.

Helen felt hot, stinging tears falling silently down her cheeks.

Madam Pince turned to everyone else in the library who was staring at them.

'WHAT ARE YOU ALL LOOKING AT? GET OUT! NOW! YOU CAN COME BACK AFTER ASTERIA HAS SORTED OUT THIS MESS!' she screeched, glaring at everyone who quickly scrambled out of the library, not wanting to be on the receiving end of her wrath, whilst she turned back to Helen.

'I AM GIVING YOU TILL 9AM TOMMOROW MORNING,' she screamed, before storming out of the library, slamming the door behind her.

Helen blinked.

'It's okay. We'll sort this out,' she kept on repeating to herself, walking numbly through the destroyed library.

She bent down to pick up a book, but ended up sinking to her knees and sobbing. She couldn't understand how this had happened. How did the chair move? Now she was sure to be expelled, not to mention being hated for all eternity by Gryffindor for losing a hefty fifty points.

She felt someone's hand on her shoulder.

'Leave me alone,' she sobbed, shrugging it off.

The person complied with her request and she heard them walk out of the library quickly. This caused Helen to cry even harder as she was now completely alone, left with the impossible task of restoring the library single-handedly.

She stood up pathetically and got out her wand which hung in her hand limply by her side. She felt emotionally drained and had no idea where she was going to start. She sunk to her knees again and relapsed into another fit of sobs.

'Now, don't cry there Helen! We can fix this together,' she heard James say, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

Helen looked up, suddenly, and saw James, Remus, Peter, Sirius and Lily looking at her with sympathetic smiles.

'N…no u…use, I'm e…expelled anyway,' Helen hiccoughed.

'Now, you know that's not true,' Remus said kindly. 'We'll all help you fix this and the library will be back to normal in no time!' he said, reassuringly.

Helen sniffed.

'Come on. Pull yourself together. We won't get very far if you're a blubbering mess!' Lily said assertively, pulling Helen to her feet.

Helen stared at them, lost for words.

'Go wash your face and when you come back, we can get started. One section at a time,' she continued, pushing Helen towards the bathroom.

'Th…thankyou,' Helen stammered to them all, touched by their comradeship.

They all beamed at her.

'Now go get a move on,' James said. 'I would like to eat dinner if I can!'

When Helen returned, one of the shelves had already been restored to normalcy.

'Okay, you pull it this way and I'll push here,' Sirius ordered James and Remus, his sleeves rolled up, perspiring a little, whilst Lily and Peter sorted through the books.

Helen suddenly realised that Sirius must have been the one who organised for them all to help her. After all- he was the only one in the library at the time and, thus, would have been the only one to know of her situation.

Helen smiled meekly at him as she went and helped him push the bookshelf to become upright. Little did she know, of course, of the deep-set guilt which he was currently feeling due to the huge role which he had played in the fiasco.

'Thanks,' Sirius panted, smiling at her.

Helen stared at him and felt her breath catching a little and her cheeks flushing traitorously.

She cleared her throat quickly.

'I should be thanking you. You did bring the others here to help, didn't you?'

It was Sirius' turn to blush.

'Ah… yeah,' he muttered, running a hand through his hair embarrassedly. 'It looked as though you needed a hand.'

Helen sighed, but smiled nonetheless.

'You got something right, for once,' she said, shooting him a fleeting suggestive grin before walking off to help Lily who was arguing with James over the 'book-ordering' charm.

---

They all continued to cooperate, offering encouraging words to each other for the next two hours. Finally, after they had all worked together to sort out the books of the last, they stepped back and surveyed the library which now looked exactly, if not tidier, than it was before the disaster.

Helen felt tears of gratitude and relief come to her eyes and impulsively went up to each of them and kissed them.

'I love you all. Thank you so much! You've saved my life- I'm forever in your debt,' she gushed.

'Ah, well, school wouldn't be the same without you Helen- right Padfoot?' said James, putting his arm around Helen and winking at Sirius.

Sirius looked at James strangely, wondering what his friend was insinuating, but then merely shrugged and said-

'Yeah, life would certainly be very dull…. Imagine! I wouldn't have anyone breathing down my neck every five minutes. I wouldn't actually be living in the fear every day that you, Asteria, will kill me... and I'm not sure if I could handle that.' Sirius said, laughing as Helen gave him a reproachful look.

'I only want to kill you all the time because you happen to go out of your way to incense me and make my life as miserable as possible,' Helen said archly.

'Fine… I'm sorry I shifted the chair today. I have to admit it was going a bit far…' Sirius admitted.

As soon as he saw Helen's face, however, he knew that he was an idiot for he realised that she had never suspected him of it in the first place.

'It was you?' she said in a deadly whisper, her eyes widening so much that she looked very frightening.

'Er…' Sirius said uncomfortably, scratching his head.

'YOU!' Helen screamed, launching herself at him, causing them to both fall to the ground as she pinned him to the ground under her, hitting every inch of him which she could reach.

'Ouch! Okay! I'm sorry!' Sirius said, trying to shield himself with his arms as Helen launched a fresh assault upon him.

'Sorry! You're sorry?' she shrieked. 'Tell that to the rest of Gryffindor when they ask me how I managed to lose fifty fucking house points, you stupid bastard! How dare you? I would have been expelled you…' Helen seethed, hitting him even harder.

'I know, I know… that's why I brought everyone here to help,' Sirius panted, still trying to shield himself from the blows.

'And that excuses you?' Helen screamed incredulously, going to slap Sirius.

Sirius, however, was too quick now. He grabbed Helen's arms and rolled over so that he was now on top of her. Helen's eyes widened in shock and she began to breathe heavily as they stared at each other.

'I said I was sorry. The truth is that I was really pissed off with your attitude before because I actually didn't mean to knock the books out of your hands. Having said that- I never intended for that prank to turn out into a fiasco. I've helped you sort out the mess now, I'll tell everyone that the fifty points was my fault… so just forget it and get over it. It's all over now,' Sirius said firmly, staring at her for a little while longer before getting up off her and walking over to the others who watched the spectacle with a mixture of horror and fascination.

'That's just typical!' Helen screamed after him, getting to her feet and glaring at Sirius. 'You think that you can just say 'sorry' all the time and that everything will be alright- that your mere apology makes us square, no matter what you've done to me! Well I've got news for you, Black- it isn't fine, and it never is. You're just a selfish, arrogant bastard. How dare you, of all people, tell me to get over it?'

Sirius spun around angrily.

'Well what more do you want me to do about it, for fuck's sakes?' he shouted back.

Helen laughed coldly.

'Do? There's nothing you can do. But don't think you can just say 'sorry' and 'get over it' and I'll accept those apologies with a sweet smile on my face, because I'm not that much of a pushover, Black,' Helen snapped, storming out of the library with Lily- who also shot Sirius a dirty look- in her wake.

Well, you have to admit he did go a bit far. She probably would have hurt herself even if she just fell straight down...At least Sirius got a kiss from her and (let's face it) she was on top of him and vice versa (even though it was because she was trying to bash him)…

No quotes, but let's just say someone gets a birthday kiss next chapter. Ask me who it is in your reviews!

Love Anya