Disclaimer: Thanks to the wonderful internet, here is a translation for you:

Che cazzo stai dicendo? (Italian) – What the hell are you talking about?

"You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you." – Carly Simon, 1972

Sirius Black's right hand tightened around his bat. When the approaching Bludger was finally in range, he swung his arm and connected with the ball. It sailed through the air, almost knocking Josephine off her broom.

"Waaaaah!" she cried. "Bloody hell, this is supposed to be an easy Friday practice."

"Sorry, Joey!"

"Don't say you're sorry!" Geoffrey called from the goalpost. "I like seeing that swing of yours. Makes me believe we can win the Cup this year."

"Oi!" James barked as he threw a ball to Charles. "What did I tell you lot? We are not discussing the Cup!" Most of the team rolled their eyes, groaned and eventually listened to their Captain. Charles, however, continued the conversation.

"Oh come off it. We're too good this year!"

"Anything can happen. We can't count our chickens before they hatch!" shouted James.

"Why is he using so many Muggle phrases all of a sudden?" Wood asked incredulously after he successfully blocked Charles' lukewarm attempt to score.

"Picked 'em up from Lily," Sirius answered with a snort. The second Bludger raced towards him and he lazily swung his arm to bat it away. He let out a sluggish sigh and waited for the next one; the sun was starting its descent towards the horizon and he smiled as he watched the sky begin to change colors. It was so beautiful and –

WHAM! Sirius felt an object crash into him.

"Fucking hell!"

He prepared for the worst; he'd learned from an early age that Bludger encounters were never trouble-free. But he soon realized that the erratic, tiny black owl in front of him caused his earlier surprise. There were no Bludgers in sight.

"Awwww, look!" Sirius cooed. "Come here little friend! I won't hurt ya!" He grinned, put the bird in the palm of his hand and stroked the back of its neck.

"What have you got there?" he asked aloud after he spied a small scroll underneath its wings. The owl happily hooted and stuck out its leg so he could remove the parchment.

Gone 'till Monday. Don't wait up for me. Have fun with the boys.

G

Sirius reread the note several times and didn't notice the bird hopping off his hand and flying away into the blushing pink sky. Once the message finally sunk it, his earlier buoyancy started to fade. Gone for the weekend? And all he got was a bloody little note? Sirius growled. He crumpled the parchment in his hands.

"Padfoot?" James called, after he finally noticed something was wrong. "You alright?"

"I'm going to punch something," Sirius said, throwing the note over to him.

"Now I think that's a bit of an overreaction, mate -"

"Read it!"

James rolled his eyes before doing so.

"So you won't see her until Monday."

"I don't know where she is!" Sirius confessed. His chest started to grow hot with nervousness. "She could be in the Castle or bloody Switzerland. This could even be a kidnap note! Give me the Map. I need to make sure she's ok."

"Padfoot -"

"Practice is practically over, you know it!"

James sighed and tossed Gemma's note back.

"It's in my bag."

"Thanks," Sirius said hastily and turned his broom towards the locker rooms.

"Oi!" called James.

"What?"

"… Don't do anything stupid."

"I'll be fine. Find you later."

When he finally reached solid ground, Sirius raced towards James' stuff and grabbed the disguised Map. He trodded off towards the Castle, dipped into the shadows, muttered the secret phrase and scanned the contents for Gemma's dot as the parchment slowly started to change. It was nowhere to be found.

"Where are you? Don't do this to me!"

He quickly scanned the Map again, scouring the entire unfolded piece of parchment until his eyes gave up and focused on the Great Hall. Maybe someone's marker was overlapping hers and she would finally turn up. But nothing changed. Sirius ran a nervous hand through his hair and apprehensively watched the crowd of students, hoping to find something.

A few moments later, Lizzie's dot moseyed away from the Hufflepuff table and Sirius saw a new marker: Giovanni Costa. He didn't bother to change out of his Quidditch robes and hurried inside. When he finally entered the Great Hall, Sirius barged over to Gio and gave him a small shove to get his attention.

"Where is she." It was not a question; it was a demand.

"Woah there, mate," Gio cautioned. "Che cazzo stai dicendo?"

"You know I don't speak Italian."

"I asked you what the fuck you're talking about," Gio snapped, matching Sirius' sour expression.

"Tell me where she is, Costa." But just after he growled and started to channel his animagus, Sirius realized that their outburst had caught the attention of most of the students around them.

"Let's not do this here," the Hufflepuff muttered darkly when he too began to notice the commotion they'd caused. Sirius sharply turned on his heel and trailed behind Gio as they left the Great Hall. After sticking his head inside a random door, Gio motioned for Sirius to join him inside the spare room.

"Now what on Merlin's magical earth are you talking about?"

"Gemma. Where is she."

"You think I keep track of that girl every minute of every day?" laughed Gio.

"She sent me this," Sirius said bluntly and shoved the scroll into his hands. Gio took a moment to read her loopy handwriting.

"Fuuuuuuck," he moaned and dramatically rolled his eyes. "She's doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"She does this," Gio explained. "When she has something she can't get off her mind, she hermits herself away."

"She does this," Sirius repeated. He felt his rapidly beating heart begin to calm down. "This is normal?"

"Well," Gio grimaced as he scratched the back of his neck, "sort of. She's normally gone for a couple of hours … not a whole weekend."

Sirius' fury returned and his weeks of patience finally snapped.

"What is it then? What can possibly be on her mind that's so disruptive? She's been perfectly happy around me …"

He made a grand assumption and held nothing back as he shoved Gio against the wall.

"What did you do to her, you bastard?"

"Nothing!" Gio managed to choke out.

"You must have upset her!" Sirius barked. "So what was it?" The Gryffindor snarled and turned even more desperate and irrational. "Did she reject your advances?"

"Let me go," Gio wheezed as he slyly touched the tip of his wand to his attacker's neck, "or I will make you." The threat jarred Sirius back to reality and he stumbled sideways as he backed away, looking down at his hands with a horrified expression. How could he have let himself go like that?

"You need to get a hold of yourself, Black," Gio said through his teeth, "or I will revert back to my Neapolitan roots."

"I'm sorry, I'm – I'm being completely mental," Sirius apologized. "You didn't deserve that in the slightest. I - I just hate when I don't know where she is. I always think the worst is going to happen – because honestly, after all these attacks, who wouldn't?"

"Mate," Gio said after a few moments, "you don't have to tell me. I worry about her too. But … " He put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm going to give you a little advice. You can try all you want, but some Hippogriffs aren't meant to be fenced in. You have to let them wander and trust they'll come back."

"I can't. Not in these times. S - She's everything to me. If someone in my family found her just walking around … If I ever lost her because of them …"

"Have you checked that room of hers?" Gio asked with a raised brow. "Maybe she left a clue about where she went."

"Fantastic!" Sirius brightened, his short attention span finding a new target. He quickly moved to leave, but before he could fly out the door, Gio caught his arm.

"Sirius, there's something you should know. You'll never have to worry about me with Gemma … because …" He looked down at the ground and continued after an aloof sigh. "… Well, because I don't actually fancy women. But that doesn't leave this room, you got it?"

"I won't tell a soul," Sirius grinned before giving him a salute and running out the classroom door. But when he practically ran up the stairs and forcefully opened the door to her private sanctuary, his exuberance faded. The sight before him took his breath away.

The room was no longer a comforting space, but instead, a gigantic schizophrenic mess. The Seer had pinned what looked like over a hundred scraps, notes and hand drawn pictures across the walls; things like a piece of fabric from his old cloak, a sketch of Remus cuddling Marianne in the Hospital Wing, a few sentences about a blonde man, a photo of a snake slithering through the grass with "REMEMBER THIS" written next to it. She had even connected everything with different colored pieces of yarn to draw conclusions.

Sirius took a moment to drink things in and slowly concluded that there were three major clusters of information. The first was made of things regarding the Hogsmeade attack, followed by good amounts of things around metallic potions and sketches of a random man on a coastline with a surfboard. But overall, the presentation of her findings didn't follow a routine order; other random artifacts continuously broke any sort of pattern that formed.

And that's when everything finally started to make sense to Sirius. Gemma's recent energy was not normal behavior. It was a restless obsession gone awry. She never slept because she was paranoid, not because she drank too much coffee. When she said she needed to be alone to do homework the night before, she was just deciding to give into her manic delusions instead, as shown by the half finished Charms essay that she left on the floor.

"Fuck," he breathed.

Not knowing what else to do, Sirius plucked a scrap off the wall. He gingerly inspected the drawing in his hands; it was a simple sketch of the wild scenery outside their Valentine's Day bungalow. The happy memory caused him to frown, but as he raised his eyes, Sirius spied another identical image pinned to the wall in front him. He did a quick spin and counted five other drawings with the exact same scenery. When he found the sixth, he ripped it off and flipped it over to read her writing.

GO BACK HERE.

Sirius knew there was a large possibility that Gemma was nowhere near the deserted campsite, but didn't care. He was desperate and used a Concealment Charm and the Map to sprint over to one of the hidden Hogsmeade passageways on the Second Floor. He couldn't sit still in the Castle and pretend nothing was wrong; it just wasn't in his nature.

Just after the sun dipped below the horizon line, Sirius emerged from the tunnel and covertly made his way through Hogsmeade until he reached the trail on the outskirts of the sleepy little town. And that's when he saw it – a small orange light in the distance.

A fire.

The Gryffindor sprinted as adrenaline and hope pulsed through him. Although his breaths became ragged and forced, he pushed on, because failure simply wasn't an outcome he would accept. He soon saw the outline of a small tent next to the frozen lake; the firelight flickered and illuminated the face of his missing girlfriend as she paced back and forth.

Sirius felt liberated and his reprieve caused him to falter backwards and step on a nearby branch. The subsequent snap! caught Gemma's attention and her face blanched when she met his stare.

"Fuck," she breathed.

"Gemma," Sirius said as he crossed towards her, "what are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question," the Hufflepuff challenged. She stuck her chin out defiantly.

"Oh no … no, no," he growled, his annoyance starting to show. "You left the Castle first."

"I told you I'd be gone, didn't I?" she muttered darkly.

"By bloody owl!" he exclaimed as he threw his hands in the air. "And without a mention of where you'd be! There's a war going on out there Gemma - you could be hurt out here alone, don't you see that?"

"I'm going to come back on Monday. I'll be fine."

"Gemma," he pleaded, "what are those things on your wall? What's going on?"

"I DON'T KNOW!"

His jaw dropped slightly. She didn't have any of her normal barriers up.

"Alright? I have no bloody clue what's going on, Sirius! Nothing makes sense anymore – up is down, black is white, everything's fucked. So I can't be in the Castle right now. It's suffocating me. I need some fresh air to think."

"Can't I help you?" Sirius asked frantically. "You don't have to do this alone, Gemma."

"Yes, I do," she snapped. "I see the future, remember?"

"But," he begged, "there has to be something I can do. Please, just come back to the Castle. We can talk things out."

"I'm not going back until Monday."

"Then I'll stay with you."

"No."

"Please," Sirius said just about a whisper, "don't push me away."

"YOU! Merlin, everything's always about you, isn't it? Can't you see that this is fucking bigger than you?"

Her voice cracked on the last word, but Sirius barely noticed. He couldn't think straight; he was too flabbergasted. He'd never seen her be this explosive before.

"I've seen things," Gemma confessed wildly. "I dreamed them clear as day, but I didn't know it. So a bad thing happened and I didn't figure it how to stop it even though it was right in front of me the whole time."

"Do you … mean Hogsmeade?" Sirius asked, trying to keep up.

"Horrible things happened. But is it my fault? Did I cause it by knowing it would happen before it did and doing something I shouldn't have? Or am I just reading the true will of the big timeline in the sky? I don't know. All I can do is place all the evidence in front of me and analyze the clues."

He remembered her personal room, and more specifically, her massive delusion of grandeur … so was her confession even based in reality? Was her dream about Hogsmeade just a coincidence and she was going off the deep end by reading into things that weren't there?

"Do you want to know what I hate?" she cried. "Uncertainty. And right now, everything around me is uncertain and I can't figure it out. I need air."

Sirius felt the oxygen rush out of his lungs; tiny buzzing stars darted across his field of vision. It was almost as if they were trying to communicate while speaking two different languages. And it scared him immensely, in a way he'd never felt before.

The Gryffindor was used to severance, as he'd bravely escaped from his family at sixteen, but after he'd taken refuge with the Potters, he couldn't bare to be isolated from his friends. Ever since that fateful night, Sirius always needed someone to connect with - someone to subconsciously remind him that there was good in the world and he'd made the right decision to fight against his family and the rising evil tide.

But with Gemma, it was something even more than that. It was a different kind of connection; it was romantic. She showed him a freedom he had never known possible. And she did it without even trying. It was just the way she expressed her love and affection. Yet, as he looked into her chaotic eyes, he realized that all of it was teetering on the brink of destruction.

"Don't go," he whimpered, "please."

Gemma finally stopped pacing and looked him in the eye. Her face fell as she registered his sadness, but she bit her lip before starting up again. He quickly reached out and grabbed her arm to steady her. She cowered slightly.

"Ok. I'll stay in the Castle," she whispered. "But I meant what I said. I need some space."

His shoulders slumped.

"Sirius," she pleaded, "something is happening – something I can't control and I'm trying to understand it. If I can't be out here, I need to be alone - to get a break from everything and try to understand what the universe is trying to tell me. I'll stay inside so you'll always be able to find me on the Map, but -"

"Can't Professor Garside help you?"

"He's too busy. And he wouldn't understand."

"Can't Madame Pomfrey give you something? To calm your dreams?"

"It's different this time." She shook her head. "That won't work. I need go to my happy place. Without any distractions from you, Gio, or anyone else. That's the only thing that's going to work. I need the weekend."

Sirius highly doubted that, but knew he couldn't force her to get help if she wasn't going to take it seriously. It seemed the only thing that was going to get her back to normal was a solitary, emotional reset. He tried to feel better now that he knew he wasn't the only one she was avoiding.

"Alright," he promised gently, giving into Gio's earlier advice, "I'll give you space."

"Thank you," she muttered before she embraced him fully and placed a quick kiss on his forehead. He tried to savor the moment and a couple of tears finally escaped his lashes. Gemma frowned sharply before brushing them away, but the moment was short lived; she moved to pack up the tent and put out the fire.

And with that, he threw Gemma one last look, took a deep breath, and headed back to the Castle with an extremely heavy heart.

Author's note: Thank you to everyone who's reviewed. You have no idea how much I appreciate it!