A/N: My name, unfortunately, is not J.K. Rowling. Therefore I did not invent this marvelous place called Hogwarts, therefore I have no rights to this story except for the plot and my own characters.

Bonjour mes petits,

C'est le samedi aujourd'hui, hooray! And that's about as far as I'm willing to write French online :'D Because although French is one of my country's main languages, I can't speak it worth a damn. I mean, I understand it when it's written down, but somehow my brain always dies a quick death whenever I try to speak it myself.

French is hard.

That being said, I would like to apologize for how much of a filler this chapter turned out to be. I wrote it last night, but didn't have the time to upload it before I left. (Which means you lucky bastards get two chapters today!) Anyway, I thought it was important to write it down though. We learn what's happening to the Coopers and, more importantly, Nika's thinking process when it comes to getting over a certain Marauder. (Not that there is ever getting over any of them -swoon-)

I hope you enjoy and I'll talk to you all tonight!

Love,

Kelly

Chapter 21

Let it go, let it go,

The cold never bothered me anyway.

~ Let It Go - Demi Lovato

It wasn't until late Thursday night that I managed to get to Dumbledore for our weekly therapy session. I was sitting uncomfortably in one of the big chairs in front of his desk as Dumbledore studied me carefully.

"May I ask what has brought this sudden change of mind?" he asked me not unkindly.

I just shrugged as I stared at his desk, now that the decision to talk to a real psychiatrist had been made I didn't much feel like talking to old Dumbles anymore. Better to talk to someone who was bound to secrecy, right?

Not that I thought Dumbledore would gossip to the other professors as soon as I left, but still. Sometimes the old man's eyes saw too much and knowledge was power. He had enough power over me as it was, being my headmaster and the keeper of my biggest secret and all.

If the Dark Lord ever found out that I was indeed alive and that Dumbledore had currently a banshee under his protection, I would be dead before you could say Quidditch.

"I imagine this has something to do with the young Mr Black?"

"Doesn't everything?" I muttered under my breath, not really answering him. I looked up to stare at one of the many portraits in Dumbledore's office. Some headmasters were smiling at me, others frowning. I made a face and turned back to Dumbledore, who was regarding me knowingly.

"I have talked to the Cooper family," he suddenly announced after he won our little staring contest.

Not that you ever could really hold a staring contest with Dumbledore. Like I said, his eyes saw too much and most of the time it felt like he could see right through you anyway. There was absolutely no need to invite him to stare some more, honestly.

I sat up a little straighter, when his words finally made sense to my messed up brain. "What did they say?"

"They are currently in hiding and are very grateful to you, Nika."

I gave him a sharp glance, but knew he wouldn't have told them anything about me, which meant that they were actually really grateful to Dumbledore. I nodded. "It was my pleasure," I said generously.

Dumbledore smiled indulgently at me with that odd twinkle in his eye. "I cannot state how much of importance your visions are, Nika. You're saving lives by doing this."

I nodded. I was aware of that, of course I was, and I imagined that I wouldn't have a clue what to do if I had been on my own with these visions. How do you go about telling someone they would be dead within the week? Besides Dumbledore had been an old friend of the family, had regularly visited our home even when I was little. I think my father had done quite the same thing for him as I did now.

Dumbledore was a powerful friend to have, because when somebody like him told you you were going to die, you ran like mad. It wasn't a secret, after all, that he was the only one old Voldy had ever feared.

"Thank you for passing along the message," I said finally.

Dumbledore just nodded, probably not being able to imagine himself doing anything else with the information. He was a good guy, our Dumbledore.

"What about Anthony though?" I asked slowly. I recalled seeing him in class the other day so he hadn't gone for cover with his parents.

"A fine question," Dumbledore answered. "Mr. Cooper will join his parents tomorrow night. I don't want to raise any suspicion by letting him leave early."

I silently agreed with his plan. It did sound a lot safer than making a big spectacle out of it and risking the odd chance that the Death Eaters got wind of it. What if Anthony led them to his parents' hideout? That just wouldn't do at all.

I just hoped that this wouldn't be the time that Voldemort understood why it was that his latest targets kept on disappearing. Not that I had been able to save that many lives in the past, sometimes there just was no fighting Fate, but I've had my hand in a fair share of his failed plans.

This was a dangerous game I was playing, but I couldn't stop no matter how much I wanted to. After all, how do you shut off a part of yourself, right? Or how would I be able to live with myself knowing that I didn't save those I knew I could have?

Dumbledore and I talked some more about random subjects. School, friends and Peeves, the bastard. I was well aware of Dumbledore's watchful gaze whenever I skirted around the subject of Sirius Black.

I didn't really feel like talking about him, let alone thinking about him. I had tried to apologize for the last few days, but he proved to be a master of evasion. Whenever I saw him walking with his friends, he always disappeared right before I reached their little group. Then the Marauders would act like they hadn't seen Sirius since their breakfast that morning.

As if that wasn't obvious, especially since they had used that same excuse on me three times in as many days. What did they think I was? Insane as well as abominably stupid? Please.

I left Dumbledore, feeling slightly better than I had going in. Soon I'd be under Greene's care again and although I didn't much feel like being another loon in his file cabinet, I did feel like I could use his clarity on some aspects of my life. I was also beyond thrilled that Dumbledore had managed to bring the family Cooper underground. The chance that they would be killed by Voldemort's army of the emotionally dead would be minimal.

I walked back to the Common Room and greeted the Fat Lady by a single word: the password. She muttered and sputtered at my rudeness, but opened nonetheless. I stopped in my tracks however when I saw Sirius sitting on the couch in front of the fire, playing Exploding Snap with Peter. I wanted to go to them and apologize, but Sirius's cold demeanour and poker face told me to steer clear.

Wasn't I the one angry at him anyway? For dumping that girl like he had?

Yes, I argued, but he had no idea it would affect me like this. Especially since his shocked and pained expression kept going through my mind when I closed my eyes. He hadn't known that I was in love with him and he hadn't wanted me to be.

Then why tease me so? Why would he lead me on if he had no interest in me whatsoever? What kind of sick game was he playing?

And why was I so hurt that he was now ignoring me? I shook my head and moved away from the portrait hole, where I had still been standing like some complete tart. I silently sat down next to Lily, who was sitting in one of the window seats.

None of that should have mattered anyway. The way he had treated Sheila was unspeakably mean and it shouldn't have mattered if he'd acted any differently if he had known of my feelings.

"You okay?" she asked me with a concerned smile, closing the book she had been reading with a snap.

I dared a glance at the cover. Charlotte Brontë. Must be a Muggle because I had never heard of her before. Maybe she'd let me borrow it when she was done, I mused. "I'm doing fine, Lils. What are you reading?"

"Jane Eyre," she replied promptly, before rushing into a not so brief explanation of the book. I loved that about her, that passion about all the things she loved. Lily could be fierce, I knew, but she could also be fearless. She'd completely throw herself in a situation without a second thought if she believed it to be the right thing to do.

Apparently Jane Eyre was about this governess who fell in love with a rich man who was apparently already married and had a child? The child wasn't his wife's though, but from one of his earlier flings and he wasn't even all that sure if it was even his.

Anyway Jane falls in love with this guy and is heart broken when she finds out about his marriage to a crazy person. I knew how the crazy wife person was feeling though, I would have gladly burned down the whole school in a rage too.

Don't think Dumbledore would have been too happy about that though, so maybe not.

"Sounds like a good book," I agreed.

"It's the best. It doesn't even come close to Pride and Prejudice though," Lily gushed.

I grinned at that. "Why? Are the main characters called Lily and James?"

"No," she said, blushing something fierce with a steely glint in her eyes. Ooh, touched a nerve there, I thought with a chuckle. "They would have been called Sirius and Nika, but then the author would have to change the title to Pride and Stupid and that doesn't have quite a nice ring to it, now does it? Also, she's dead so the title can't be changed."

I glared at her. "I'm not being stupid about this, he is."

"Then that makes you proud," Lily swiftly replied.

I shook my head in frustration. Sometimes there was just no winning from Lily. It was a fool's errand to try anyway, although she had been feeling guilty about the whole ordeal. For some reason she thought that it had been her fault that our fight escalated, which was nonsense of course. Nobody made me kiss Sirius and lay my feelings right out in the open. That was all on me.

I found myself staring at him as my thoughts wandered. His back was stiff and he moved in little jerks. It was ridiculous how much I was whining about this, I realized.

Two months ago I had barely spoken to the lad before and now I was missing him like crazy. Irrational is what it was. I had been used to not talking to Sirius on a daily basis, or well ever to be honest.

I just needed to get back into that state of mind and then all my problems would be solved.

"Hey Lily?" I asked, tearing my eyes away from Sirius' stiff form.

"Hey Nika?" she asked in the exact same tone, making me smile despite myself.

"How about we ban all thoughts of boys this Christmas break?"

Lily's smile was breathtaking as she squeezed my hand. "I would very much like that."

Yes, I would too.