Disclaimer- You would think that after having so much time to think that I would have come up with a really witty disclaimer…I didn't though so I'll just go with the blunt 'I don't own Harry Potter.'

Thanks a lot for all the reviews on the last chapter! I'm sorry that I took forever and a half to get this short little chapter up, but at least it's something! Please review again!

Chapter 14-

"It's not going to just disappear," a blonde girl snapped in exasperation before storming away.

I gave her retreating back a dirty look before frowning back at myself in the lavatory mirror. My fingers ran over the splotch on my neck. I didn't know how it got there exactly but I was almost positive that it was Sirius's doing. It had to be…unless I have some undiscovered disease which causes random love bites to appear on me.

…That would be very unfortunate. Everyone would think I was a slut, which I obviously wouldn't be, due to the rare skin disorder it would just appear that way. If you're going to get a bad reputation, I think you deserve to have fun getting it. A skin disease would be lame…and boring.

"A watched kettle never boils!"

I whipped around to see a small group of sniggering third years shuffling out the door. The smirks were evident on their smug faces.

"Was that comment necessary?!" I shouted angrily at the empty lavatory.

My chest swelled with relief. I felt as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. The release of those angry words made me feel wonderful. Perhaps I just needed to vent more.

"Yeah, that's right! Just run from the crazy girl staring at her hickey! As hard as it may be to believe, I am aware that it will not just magically disappear if I gawk at it long enough! Well, it's not even mine! I don't know how it got there! So…there! No, wait, I do! It's a skin disease! Did you hear that? DISEASE! It's fatal too! And you know who I got it from? BLOODY SIRIUS BLACK! He's like a rat carrying the plague! He's a stupid wanker! Stupid, stupid, stupid wanker!"

I yanked my hair in frustration and stomped my feet harshly. After taking one last deep breath, I fixed my disarrayed hair, smoothed my robes, and smiled at myself in the mirror. As I turned around to proudly march out of the lavatory, a small girl with the eyes the size of milk saucers caught my eye.

"Er…" I started awkwardly.

The girl looked at me in horror and scurried out of the bathroom like I told her I was going to kill her mother. I suppose next time I'll make sure I'm alone…

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Don't strangle him.

That would be murder…and murder would mean spending the rest of my life in Azkaban…which at this point doesn't seem all that bad.

I sucked in a deep breath in hopes of calming myself. I found that, even after I exhaled, my eyes were still narrowed dangerously at the boy down the hall, talking to a tall brunette. I felt an odd combination of emotions churning around in my stomach. I was still angry at him for acting like an arse, but I felt sharp pangs of jealousy and envy course through me. How on earth could I possibly even want to be with that jerk now? The workings of a teenage mind will forever remain a mystery.

I let a slew of curse words tumble out of my mouth while I made my way steadily towards Sirius and the stupid slut he was sweet-talking.

OK, maybe she isn't that stupid. She's only ranked about fourth in our year...Like that's anything to be proud of! And I might have exaggerated a bit when I used the term slut. Just a bit though!

Alright, I admit it. I'm jealous as hell. That doesn't actually even begin to cover it. It makes me feel horrible seeing as Beth is a really nice girl. She actually lends me her notes sometimes. I often wonder if I was a mass murderer in a past life because I seem to have an awful lot of wretched luck.

The way I see it, it can't really get any worse. I've already made a fool of myself in more ways than I ever thought humanly possible, so I might as well finish it off and shoot whatever meager chance I had at a social life. I'm really just putting it out of its misery. Poor thing. It's an act of compassion.

"I'd like that," Beth said coyly, smiling at Sirius.

"You know what I'd like?" I asked sharply, coming up behind the two.

Sirius looked startled when he heard my voice. His expression quickly changed to dread when he saw the furious look on my face. I couldn't help but relate to him. I was afraid of what I was about to say too.

"Do I have to answer that?" he questioned tentatively.

"I'd like you to grow up, Sirius. I'd like you to stop being an arse and I'd like you to—" I paused and composed myself, wiping at my wet eyes, "I'm going to save my breath. You don't care what I'd like or what anyone else would like. If you don't care, I don't care! I give up!"

Taking the hint, Beth quietly tried to walk away from the scene. I let out a shaky breath that ripped at my throat. I didn't remember the tears welling up in my eyes or anything after that. The only thing that I'll ever remember about that moment was seeing Sirius go after her. It was a hard dose of reality.

It was all some hopeless dream that I'd conjured in my mind…

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One thing that all teenagers learn is that rumors spread like wildfire. Another thing that teenagers learn is that rumors are completely and utterly stupid and not true in the least and were just created by come catty girl to get back at an equally catty girl for some stupid reason and sometimes result in an innocent passerby's life being destroyed. Although for the past seven years I've managed to keep myself off this rumor radar, I found myself bursting onto the scene with not just one delicious scrap of gossip, but two! Yes, you heard it. There were two lovely rumors circulating through Hogwarts that involved me, and coincidentally, Sirius Black. Not only had I cheated on Phillip with him, but I had contracted some strange skin disease from him.

Strangely enough, there was some truth to these rumors. For the first time in Hogwarts history, a valid rumor has been created. I really would have preferred to have a different rumor spread about me. I think that a highly contagious butt rash would have been suitable. Anything but snogging Sirius Black.

"Have you heard the ridiculous rumors going around?" James asked during lunch.

"The one about the girl with butt rash?" Peter questioned.

"If only, if only," I sighed wistfully to myself.

"No, the one about Courtney and Sirius shagging," James responded casually.

I'm not going to lie and say that some kind of liquid didn't come spraying from mouth. I'm also not going to lie and say that I didn't notice the way everyone's eyes (with the exception of James) bugged out. It was apparent that nobody had heard this rumor. Not even I had heard this one and I've had about twenty people ask me about Sirius today.

"You didn't tell me that!" Lily cried, looking completely appalled, "You just—"

"Told you about the one where I got the weird skin disease from him," I finished hurriedly.

"How could you not have heard about the shagging rumor? How do you think you got that disease?" James scoffed.

"I am not diseased!" Sirius snapped indignantly.

"Wait, what's this disease called?" Peter asked.

"There is no disease," I said, rolling my eyes.

"It's called Terminal Hickey Syndrome, or THS," James replied wisely, and then, lowering his voice to a whisper, said, "It's fatal so it's best not to talk about it too much…bad luck."

Remus raised his eyebrow at this. I guess I'm not the only one who was disappointed in the student body's lack of creativity in naming this new sexually transmitted disease. I snorted at the horrified look on Peter's face.

"Prongs, you do know that rumors aren't true, right?" Remus asked innocently.

"That's just what they want you to think," he whispered back.

"Do you honestly believe that Courtney and I would ever shag?" Sirius laughed.

James took a couple seconds to glance between the two of us before laughing and shaking his head.

"Nah, the idea is completely barmy. Like you guys would even think about each other in that way," he laughed again.

Sirius and I both shifted uncomfortably in our seats. I could feel my face growing warm but I quickly fought off the feeling when I remembered what he had done. My face started getting red again though, only in anger this time. My fingernails dug into the palm of hand painfully as I tried to resist crying or slapping Sirius.

I could sense that everyone's eyes were starting to glance awkwardly in my direction. I abruptly stood up and grabbed my books. I muttered an inaudible excuse and hurried out of the Great Hall, hanging my head low with my hair swinging on either side of my face.

Could I get more pathetic in any way? Really? Is it possible?

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Sirius's POV

"You're such a hypocrite," I said matter-of-factly, leaning on the wall next to Courtney who was currently scowling at the wall opposite of us.

"Glad somebody noticed," she muttered bitterly.

"You're just as immature and selfish as I am," I added.

"So it would seem," Courtney sighed.

She stayed silent. I looked over at her timidly. She was glaring and had a mean look on her face but she was still pretty. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and sighed, causing her to raise an eyebrow at me.

"So, er, want to snog?" I asked.

"For the sake of your balls, please tell me that you're joking," she shot back.

"You have to make everything so bloody complicated, don't you?" I snapped.

"I'm the one making things complicated? Well, isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?" Courtney spat.

"You start dating this complete idiot just to spite me and then you get mad at me when I help you break things off with him!" I said hotly.

"What makes you think that you had anything to do with my relationship with Phillip? See, this is what I'm talking about. You're so arrogant and frustrating! You followed me out here just to pick a fight!" she yelled.

"You're the one who had to make the scene in front Beth! It was a totally unprovoked attack! Merlin only knows how many people she told before I could convince her to keep her mouth shut," I growled.

"Embarrassed, are we? Then you shouldn't have kissed me in the first place!" she cried, her eyes getting glassy.

I stopped with my mouth hanging open. Any sharp remark I had planned to say vanished from my mind. She was going to go all emotional on me because she thought I was embarrassed. As much as I wanted to tell her about my mate's feelings for her, I couldn't.

"You think I'm embarrassed?" I asked quietly.

She narrowed her eyes at me. In some way, her rude demeanor was a defense mechanism. After spending time with her, I've caught on to it. She tries to act tough but it's all an act. I can see right through it…especially now when it's at its weakest. She rubbed at her nose with her sleeve before nodding.

"It's not that easy," I murmured, reaching my hand out to touch her cheek.

"Don't," she said coldly, causing me to jerk my hand back.

"What are we even fighting about?" I snapped in irritation.

"Does it even matter, Sirius?" Courtney questioned stiffly, turning on her heel and walking away from me.

Why must I fancy this difficult girl?

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A/N-OK, I realize that I disappeared off the face of the earth pretty much. Would it make anyone happy if I said that I got an A in algebra? I didn't think so…It was worth a shot. To make a long story short, stress got the best of me and I haven't even been able to think about writing for months. I am a little ball of stress and anxiety. So it happens. Anyway, I apologize for the length of this chapter. I knew it was going to be short but I also knew that it might be a very long time before I got the chance to write again. Excuse the mistakes and such as I was very incoherent today. I'm going through med withdrawal. Yeah, what a joke. I thought I would be able to write after I got my wisdom teeth out on Thursday. I haven't been awake longer than two hours until today. And I'm rambling so I need to wrap this up. I'll try to get a chapter up sometime within the next week or so, hopefully I'm getting back into the swing of things. Please review! Thanks again for all the previous reviews! I really, really, really appreciate it!