I could have killed her. I could have legitimately killed her. Why had I been so nice to her in the first place? Maybe I couldn't blame her for ruining my life with the original Sirius thing but this was undeniably her fault. How could she put me in such an awkward position anyways? What the hell did she think she was helping anyways?

I uncomfortably crossed my arms in front of me. I was so angry I couldn't even think straight. What did she possibly think was going to come out of this? Well, other than her death warrant. What right did she think she had to put me in this position anyways? I sat on the edge of the front desk, feeling an enormous amount of discomfort. Of all the uncomfortable situations I'd been in this probably took the cake as the worst. I mean, who could honestly say that they enjoy being locked against their will in a room with a bloke who hates them yet they still have romantic feelings for? Nobody in their right mind at least.

I stared outside the window, trying to distract myself from the obvious tension of the room. I could see the trees outside and I was surprised how bare they were. Was the season really that close to winter? How distracted did I have to be to completely miss the fact that the trees had already shed their leaves for the year? I suppose I really shouldn't have been surprised by my obliviousness. I hadn't really been that observant, even since before everything that happened that year. Before Marren brought me into her drama and before what happened with Robin I still hadn't been very aware of what was going on around me. I must have gotten my tendency to forget about everyone else in the world from my parents. They'd never really been very aware either. Looking back, Wen was probably worse than them. The horrid, selfish bastard!

"We should probably be pretending to make a truce," Sirius' gruff voice brought me back to reality. I turned to look at him, surprised to hear him speak. He hadn't seen anything since Marren locked us in. "The sooner we make her think we're on good terms, the sooner she lets us out and the sooner you can go back to hating me in peace."

I was more than a little taken back by his assumption that I hated him. I'd hadn't done anything that came off even vaguely hostile, had I? I mean, I threatened to get Marren expelled for locking me into a room with him but that was because this was awkward, not because I resented him. I probably couldn't have brought myself to if I tried.

The old me would have rolled my eyes at him, insulted his intelligence and informed him that I didn't hate people for being idiots so he was safe. This new, more tired me, however, was less aggressive. "I don't hate you," I replied matter-of-factly.

He snorted, looking at me dubiously, "I don't believe you."

I shrugged, "Fine, think whatever you want. It doesn't matter anyways." I turned my attention back to the window, staring back at the bald trees.

"Yes it does!" he argued with a sense of passion that I didn't have the energy to match. Just being in the same room was him zapped me of too much energy from me to even try to argue with him. Between the emotional tailspin I was in from being around him and yelling at Marren I just too tired to play these pointless games. It didn't matter if I hated him because he hated me. Even if I could persuade him I didn't hate him then it still wouldn't change our situation. I didn't have enough energy anymore to waste on such pointless things.

I sighed, "Sirius, can't we just get out of here already? Can we please just focus on persuading Marren to let out of here?"

"No!" he refused stubbornly, his habit of being thick-skinned flaring up. "I'm not leaving here until you explain."

I groaned. Why did he have to be so infuriating? I really didn't have the attention for this or the time for him to raise my blood pressure. "What do you want me to explain? If you want something just tell me so we can both be on our way before Hogwarts gets two new ghosts."

"I want to know what happened."

"Which 'what'? There's a lot of 'what's in the world so perhaps you could be a little more specific," I snapped, feeling a sense of frustration I'd hadn't felt in a long time.

"What happened with Marren," he retorted. "Tell me why you agreed to any of this in the first place."

I didn't need any more specification than that. Immediately I decided to tell him the truth, the whole truth and the hell to any consequences. "Because I felt bad for her," I replied angrily. "I saw a silly little girl who was never going to wake up to reality until something smacked her in the face with it. I figured that considering at that point she didn't have a spine that it took a lot of courage for her to come and ask me for her help. I figured if I told her no then she'd stay in her unhappy relationship forever."

"Oh so you were saving her from me?" he scoffed. Merlin, I'd forgotten how much a pain in the arse he could be sometimes.

"I was saving her from herself, you idiot," I retorted hotly. "If you hadn't noticed before that she didn't have enough self esteem to realize anything. I was saving her from spending the rest of her life with her head stuck in the sand. If you hadn't noticed, it worked. She's finally got a backbone, no thanks to you. Shouldn't you be thanking me for saving you from a loveless relationship, anyways?" Alright, maybe the old Cherry was instinctively coming back to the surface. "Besides, she seems to be better for it too. She seems quite fond of Lupin."

"That's not the point!" he argued.

I sighed, feeling my blood pressure beginning to rise and my usual desire to snog him was replaced by the desire to throttle him. "What is the point then? What is this all about, huh? If you're brassed off about something then I wish you'd just tell what it is so that we can get this over with."

"Who says I'm brassed off?"

"So you're not angry?" I inquired dubiously.

"Of course I'm angry! Do you realize what you've done?" he demanded.

I felt the sudden urge to pull my own hair out. This was getting us absolutely nowhere. I didn't remember him to be so ridiculous and foolhardy. "Fine! What is it you want from me, huh? What do you want me to say? What do you want me to do for this whole nightmare to be over, huh? That I'm sorry? That I'll never co-conspire with any of your future girlfriends? What do you want from me?"

His expression softened from the hardheaded irritation I saw before. "I just - I just want you to have missed me as much as I missed you."

That was definitely not something I'd had expected. I opened my mouth to speak but I couldn't think of any words to say so I closed it soon after. I opened it again but it resulted in the same results. I didn't know what to say. I'd braced myself from him to be angry, not act like this. I opened and closed my mouth so frequently and so rapidly I probably looked like a fish out of water. "But you - You hate me," I ended up telling him lamely.

He let out a rather unattractive snort, "Hate you? I wish I could. It would make things easier, wouldn't it? If I could just be angry with you and leave it at that?" He let out a heavy sigh. "Well I suppose if I'm going to muck this up then I might as well do it right, huh? How could you think I could even comprehend the idea of hating you? You think we'd be in this mess if I could just despise you and go on with my life? I can't even try. I'm not even sure I would if I could."

"I - I don't understand," I admitted, feeling a bit helpless and out of the loop. I suppose that goes without saying. The blank look was probably enough for him to realize that I was having trouble putting the pieces together.

"Cherry Clark, sometimes I wonder which one of us is really the thicker one. Do you think I'd try to kill Young for anyone? Do you think I'd stay at the Hospital Wing twenty four hours a day for just anybody?"

"But - But you left," I pointed out rather stupidly.

"I had to," he replied in a soft tone. "I thought I could handle it. I thought I could manage standing by your side through your entire disdain for me. I thought it didn't matter as long as I kept you safe. I thought that as long as I could make your pain go away that it would be enough for me. I guess I overestimated myself. Alexander was always coming into the Hospital Wing to look for you and it was too painful. When Pomfrey discharged you I saw a chance to leave with only minimal feelings of guilt. I figured you'd survived the worst of it and you'd get your bearing back in no time. Now that I look back I realize it was all me just trying to make myself feel better for leaving."

I didn't know what to say. I'd really convinced myself that he hated me. I'd been so sure after the night at the party that he'd had to have hated me for everything that happened. It was like my brain was still refusing to put the pieces together, despite how obvious it seemed to fit. My mind was so full of questions I felt like I was going to explode as each one of them fought to get out. "What does Riley have to do with all of this?" Really? Of all the questions that I manage to let escape and it's that one?

He let out a gruff laugh, not anything like the canine-like laugh I'd grown to adore and eventually miss. This one was more bitter and dry-humored, "Do you remember when we talked about my jealousy towards your relationship with Alexander? Do you really think it stopped just because of what happened at the party? I can't turn my emotions off as easily as I'd like to, Cherry. Trust me, if I could then I would have stopped the suffering a while ago."

"I – I still don't understand," I admitted feebly.

He groaned, shaking his head at me with an exasperated smile, "I love you, you dolt."

I felt kind of like someone who'd been trying to complete a puzzle for a horridly long time and then someone else came in and pointed out where the missing piece went like it were obvious. It really was obvious, wasn't it? I suppose I should have really been able to put the pieces together. "Oh."

He snorted and shook his head at me, "What am I going to do with you?"

If he could put it all out there and admit to loving me when he thought I hated him in return then I could return the favor. I decided then and there to start acting like the Gryffindor I was and not some pathetic Hufflepuff. Just because I'd helped Ali get a spine didn't mean I'd automatically lose my own. I determinedly pushed myself off of the desk, marching up to him with a purpose. He looked at me with silent surprise. I wrapped my arms around him in one fell swoop. I breathed him in, inhaling in his scent like I was never going to get an opportunity to do this again.

"Is this pity or you not the only idiot here?" he inquired apprehensively, his arms at his side.

"Love, have you ever looked at our school? We've got so many idiots here we're practically overflowing," I pointed out.

A grin slowly erupted on his face. "You love me back," he commented with his grin practically taking over his entire face. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Why didn't you tell me?" I countered.

"I thought you hated me," he told me, squeezing me firmly against him. "It was hard enough being away from you. I knew I couldn't risk being rejected. It would have killed me."

"Well I thought you hated me for everything that I did with Marren," I admitted. "I'd just hoped I could forget about all of it. Turns out that attempt became a whole disaster and it caused me to turn into an alcoholic. It was an apparently impossible attempt."

"Tell me what happened," he requested. "Tell me everything that happened after you left that night. It might help me understand."

"Well it's a long story so you might want to sit down," I informed him.

I felt him let go of me, causing me to let out a wordless groan of complaint. He gave me a consoling smile, pulling his wand from his back pocket. He did a fancy bit of wand work, Transfiguring a desk into a couch. I was impressed. Maybe I could have learned to do something like that too if I'd bothered going to Transfiguration regularly but I'd been too drunk lately to go and if McGonagall had caught me she'd have expelled me.

He took a seat on the couch, beckoning me to take a seat next to him. I didn't need much persuasion. Though it was an extremely hard story to tell, I was so excited to have him back in my life I would have told him anything he wanted to know. "Where would you like me to start and where would you like me to end?"

"From when you left that night to when Ali brought you here," he answered.

I nodded, trying to remember everything that was memorable enough to need mentioning. "After I left I fell apart. I just couldn't function anymore. I felt incredibly guilty and I knew I couldn't go back to Gryffindor Tower without Evans trying to kill me in my sleep. I ended up in Ravenclaw Tower with Robin. She dragged me to lunch the next day. That was when I saw Marren with Lupin for the first time. She looked so incredibly happy and I felt like I'd gotten the short end of the stick. I'd done this for her and she was so happy and free because of it while I was completely miserable. I blamed her for everything. I didn't realize until much later that I was the one who I was really angry at, not her. Anyways, seeing her be so happy made something snap inside of me. That's when I turned to trying to forget you in all the wrong ways.

"Pills, alcohol, etc. None of it really made me forget you. It just made me not care. I tried almost everything I could think of to try and make me forget. Well, almost everything," I added with a wary smile. "There were some things I couldn't make myself do."

"Like what?" he questioned curiously.

"Save your questions 'til after the story," I scolded him jokingly with a light-hearted smile. "Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah, now I remember. I didn't come out of my stupor until I found Robin in that broom cupboard. It was like I couldn't breathe or move or even think. It was like my world had just ended in front of my eyes. She had been the only person I had left and when she was gone I just shut down. The next part about Evans and Potter finding me I'm sure you've heard from them so I'll spare you from having to listen to the mundane details. You also know about what happened with Young and you were with me until I got discharged so I suppose that takes us to after I left the Hospital Wing. After that I don't remember much before Marren gave me her first letter. I'd been trying so long to go numb from the pain and the hurt that I didn't realize until after Robin died that I'd been living like the dead. The problem with living like that for so long is that it's hard to return to the land of the living, especially when you're trying to do it alone.

"After Evans put me in the Hospital Wing for a suicide attempt false alarm, I got a letter from Marren. She was seeking my help about something or another, though she never told me what that was. Anyways, she become my gateway back to reality. That alone is probably the only reason I'm not going to kill her for this little stunt. And I think that's really the whole story in a nutshell."

"Can I ask questions now?" he inquired, reminding me a lot of a young child who was forced to wait until after the story to ask about how big the dragon that the hero fought in the story was.

"Only if I reserve the right to choose not to answer," I agreed.

"Alright, first question is what didn't you do?

I could practically feel myself blush. I really didn't want to tell him that he'd practically turned me impotent but I knew that if I refused to answer that it would look worse than it really was. "Erm – I didn't turn to sex or cocaine. Next question?"

"What really happened with Young? What happened before I got there?" Well, at least he didn't push the subject about my sudden lack of a sex life. He just wanted to know about my recent sexual assault.

I took a deep breath before giving the most bare boned recollection of the story I thought I could get away with, "Before I found Robin, Young was hitting on me in the corridor. I pretty much told him to go to hell and he got a little mad. When he found me practically comatose I suppose he thought he'd try to teach me a lesson or something."

"Well that's a bare minimum story if I've ever heard one," he commented.

I opened my mouth to argue but he silenced me, pressing a finger to my lips. "I'm not complaining. I know you've got a right not to answer any questions you're uncomfortable with and I'm not going to pry if you don't want me to."

Yep, that was definitely one of the many reasons I'd fallen in love with the bloke in the first place. I guess I really was in love with him, wasn't I? "Any other questions?"

"Just one. How much did you miss me?" he grinned cheekily. How did we get here? How did we go from thinking that the other one hated us to swapping angst stories to him teasing me? And furthermore, why did this feel so natural? Was it because we both wanted to stop avoiding each other? Because we'd actually missed each other quite a deal?

"Who says I missed you?" I scoffed. "Aren't you a self-important git?"

"You did miss me," he shook his head confidently. "If you didn't then you wouldn't have thrown yourself at me at the first opening."

I rolled my eyes, knowing he was just being playful. "Watch yourself, Black, or I'll start actually hating you."

He wraped his arm around my shoulder, "You wouldn't dare. You know it'd kill me if I lost you again."

"Well then you'd better watch yourself because if I were to hate you then I wouldn't be too worried about killing you," I informed him.

"Should I really be concerned about you starting to hate me?" he inquired dubiously.

I just rolled my eyes. Of course not. He had to have known that being away from him would do as much damage to me as it did to him. I would never have been able to make myself walk away anyways. I peeled his arm off of me and strode up to the door. I banged on it purposefully, "Marren, open this damn door already or I'll kill Black and it'll be all your fault."

I could see Sirius gape at me out of the corner of my eye. "You'd kill me?" he demanded.

I just shook my head at him, waiting for Marren to open the door. Of course, I wouldn't kill him. I just didn't want Marren to think that he and I had worked through our issues because of this. She'd locked me in a room against my will. I certainly wasn't going to give her any reason to celebrate because of it.

The door squelched open and Marren looked less than impressed. "Clark, you're positively the most stubborn, hardheaded –" she began to rant.

"Oh save it, Marren," I cut her off. "Sirius, love, let's get out of here before she locks us in again. It's almost time for dinner."

I could see the clogs in Marren's mind beginning to turn as Sirius got to his feet. Walking over to me in a victorious way, "Let's go, pet." He even took my hand for good measure, leading me away from the classroom and towards the Great Hall.

"CHERRY CLARK! YOU LYING –" I could hear Marren yell from behind me, obviously not appreciative of my little white lie about considering killing Sirius.

Sirius and I laughed and my ribs left like they might collapse. It'd been a while since I laughed like that and my body was apparently not used to it. I couldn't help but feel incredibly happy. I felt like all my suffering was finally over and that life was finally going to go uphill for once.

Evans and Potter looked completely disgusted and gobsmacked when Sirius and I arrived at the Great Hall, hand in hand. Apparently they weren't too happy with the idea of me sticking around. Lupin had a small smile, however, and he looked like the only one in the group who might possibly not completely despise me and my involvement with Sirius.

"Clark, I need to talk to you," Evans informed me with a small, almost undetectable snarl. "Boys, please excuse us." She got to her feet in a very determined and aggressive way, tearing me away from Sirius, much to my chagrin. I didn't want to talk to her. I didn't even really want to remember she existed.

She marched me back of the Great Hall, her eyes looking like they were full of lightning and her hair like a forest fire. "I don't know if you've noticed this, Clark, but I really don't like you." I opened my mouth to retort that she'd made that very obvious but she cut me off before I could. "I can see now that you're not going away. You wormed your way into Ali's life and now you're leeching onto Black. You might be a parasite but just remember that you're only here because I'm letting you be. James will do whatever I say and if I told him to make Black break up with you then he would in an instant. He doesn't like you much better than I do. Just remember who has the power in this situation."

I knew she was right. I knew that James was practically her lapdog and that Sirius took James' opinion very seriously. I'd just blindly walked into a situation where the person who hated me most at Hogwarts suddenly had all the power. I didn't respond to her. I knew that I couldn't fight back against her and I didn't want to have to concede out loud that I really was at her mercy.

She dug into her book bag, something I hadn't even realized that she'd brought with her. She handed me a worn piece of parchment, "Here's how you're going to live your new life. I wrote them after Ali started taking a liking to you again. Don't even think about breaking any of these rules or I'll make sure Black casts you out so fast it'll make your head spin. Learn them, memorize them and live them, Clark. If anything needs to be added, changed or updated I'll let you know. I'll see you at dinner." She stormed away like some sort of natural disaster, bringing misery to anyone that crossed her path.

I looked down at the parchment and there in Evans' perfectly neat handwriting were the new guidelines to my life.

No more receiving detentions

No more skipping lessons, unless Madam Pomfrey herself calls for it

No more picking fights with anyone, including Slytherins

Interacting with any old friends who I, myself, do not approve of is forbidden

Insulting anyone is no longer allowed

No breaking curfew

No more meeting with Ali when no one else is around

Homework is mandatory

Drinking alcohol, smoking and doing any recreational drugs is forbidden

You must speak to everyone in a polite tone

I didn't know how I was going to survive any of these conditions. I even considered throwing the rules back in Evans' face and telling her to go to hell. That was until I remembered how that breaking any of these rules would result in her completely sabotaging my relationship with Sirius. Well you're an idiot, I couldn't help but think bitterly. Looks like life won't be going uphill, huh? I scowled at myself for thinking that but I didn't even try to argue with myself. I might not have liked my inner cynic but it was definitely right. Life was not going uphill anytime soon. In fact, life was about to really start to suck.

Author's Note:

I'm really sorry that this chapter took longer to get out then my chapters usually do. I've been very distracted lately with my new novel I'm planning on writing. That's right, my dear readers, I'm finally going to get back on the horse and try writing an actual novel for the first time in a very, very long time. I'm excited and nervous and anxious and pretty much a ball of nerves but this is definitely time for me to explore other options than just fanfiction. Though this means I'll be eventually leaving the world of fanfiction, it doesn't mean that this fic in particular is going to be abandoned. This fic and my eventual collaboration piece with javalon14, Freakin-Little and BulletTheBlueSkyU2 is going to be my last work in fanfiction for a while. I've been blessed with an amazing collection of readers but it's time for me to start moving on to other aspects of writing. I have to emphasize that Maybe I Know is NOT going to be abandoned. Javalon14 might possibly try to kill me if I tried anyways. We are seeing this story to the end so don't worry.

Happy Reading!

Evan