A/N: I know I kind of left the last chapter as a bit of a cliff hanger and it took me a little while to update. Well, read and review! And thanks a million for reading my story! :)

The Dagdah's Priestess: Thank you for reading my story and your great reviews! It means a lot to me that somebody will actually review it. I usually have a lot of fun writing Sean and Taylor together, so I'm glad you like it!

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Miscommunications

When Taylor woke up the next morning, it took her a while to remember why she felt so crappy. And then the memory of her thoughts last night tumbled down upon her and she felt even worse than before. She sat on her bed, staring at her feet for a long time, until Ginny asked her if she was coming down for breakfast.

"Oh, yeah, I am," Taylor said. She quickly stripped off her pajamas and pulled her school robes on over her head, threw her bag with her books in it over her shoulder and started down the stairs with Ginny. Sean was waiting for her at the bottom. At the sight of him, Taylor felt a lump rising in her throat. Sean smiled widely at her, and she wondered why he was bothering. He tried to take her hand, but she pulled her hand out of his and kept walking. Ginny looked at Taylor curiously.

"Taylor, what's wrong?" Sean asked, catching up with her and Ginny.

"Nothing," Taylor said stiffly.

"Why are you upset with me?" Sean asked, trying to look her in the eyes, but Taylor was avoiding his gaze.

"I'm not," Taylor said, still avoiding looking him in the eye.

"Taylor, could you please tell me – "

"I think you know what's wrong," Taylor said, and continued walking with Ginny. Sean fell behind, looking hurt and bewildered.

"Did you and Sean have a fight or something?" Ginny, who glanced over her shoulder at Sean, asked curiously as they headed down to the Great Hall.

"No, not exactly. Well, we were hanging out yesterday outside and he was going to say something, but he stopped himself. I think that he was going to say that he doesn't like me anymore and just doesn't know how to tell me." Taylor voiced what was bugging her. "And I just don't understand what happened. I thought we were doing so well." She paused, and then continued, "I hope it's not because I'm such an emotional wreck. I know it's hard on those who are closest to me. I never meant to hurt him, and I definitely never meant to scare him off." Taylor broke off, not knowing what else she wanted to tell Ginny.

"Have you asked Sean about this?" Ginny asked. "Maybe you're just interpreting this wrong. You have to communicate with him. He looked really hurt this morning when you blew him off. Communication is key, sweetie. Why don't you ask him?"

"I already asked him, remember?" Taylor said. "And he wouldn't tell me what he was going to say."

"Well, I think you should tell him what you're thinking he was going to say, and confront him about it. Maybe you're not thinking what he was thinking. But," she said as Taylor made every sign of wanted to interrupt, "if that's really what he was going to say, at least you will know the truth, even though it would hurt like hell. But," Ginny continued louder, as Taylor was looking like she wanted to interrupt her again. "If that's not what he was going to say, it would be stupid to be mad at him over nothing."

Taylor was struggling not to cry. "I don't really want to talk to him at all." She said.

"Taylor – " Ginny started.

"No, Ginny." Taylor said. "Maybe I'll talk to him later. Not now."

"You just really need to communicate with each other, I'm sure that's what this is, a miscommunication!" Ginny called after Taylor's retreating back.

"Ah!" She exclaimed, standing outside the Great Hall that Taylor had just entered and throwing her hands up in the air.

"Is Ginny mad at you, too?" Said a voice behind her, and Ginny turned to see Sean, whose face looked crumpled.

"Well, I don't know if she's mad or not, but she's being impossible." Ginny said. "I told her that she needed to talk to you and she's being totally unreasonable about it."

"Why is she mad at me?" Sean queried hopefully. "Did she tell you?"

"Well, yes, I do know," Ginny said. "But shouldn't you two work this out for yourselves?"

"Please, just tell me?" Begged Sean. "So I can have at least a clue as to why she's suddenly so mad at me?"

"OK, well, yesterday apparently you were about to say something to her and you stopped yourself. She thinks that you were trying to tell her that you don't like her anymore." Ginny said.

"Blimy, no! Is that what the problem is?" Sean asked incredulously and blushing slightly at the same time.

"Yes, that's what's the matter with her. Is that not what you were going to say?" Ginny asked curiously.

"Quite the opposite, actually," said Sean, who was looking really uncomfortable and blushing deeply. "I was, well, OK, I was going to tell her," he paused. "I was going to tell her I love her." He finished quickly and quietly so that Ginny had to lean close to hear him, looking down at his feet, his face a bright red.

"Oh," said Ginny, a bit taken aback. "Well, that's quite on the opposite end of the spectrum. Why didn't you tell her?"

Still looking at his feet, Sean mumbled, "I didn't want to scare her away from me. If I come on too strong like that, she might not want to be involved with me anymore. It's too soon to be saying that, and I don't want to lose her. It's just sometimes when I'm with her, the words just want to come out of my mouth without me even thinking about it. I'm scared they're just going to slip out someday."

"Well, you need to tell Taylor what you've told me. She's falling apart thinking that you don't like her." Ginny said.

"I just told you, I can't tell her!" Sean said.

"Well, at least tell her that you really like her, or something to cheer her up, or she's going to fall apart again."Ginny said

"I don't want to scare her," Sean repeated.

"You don't have to tell her you love her; just tell her that you care about her. Say you care about her a lot. You don't have to declare your undying love for her, just reassure her that you're not about to up and leave her for another girl." Ginny reasoned.

"If she'll let me tell her. She completely gave me the cold shoulder this morning. Will she talk to me anymore?" Sean asked.

"Of course she will. Just tell her that she has to hear you out. Tell her you have something important to tell her. Although come to think of it, that might scare her, too, thinking that what the important thing you're going to tell her is that you don't care for her anymore."

"Damn. What am I supposed to do?" Sean demanded. "I have to talk to her, but if I try, she'll think I'm breaking up with her. Wow. That's just spectacular." He said sarcastically. "Hang on," he said, realizing something, "you could tell her. Could you tell her for me?"

Ginny frowned. "I'm not going to be your messenger. This is between you and her, you have to tell her."

"You are no help whatsoever." Sean said flatly.

"Yeah, well, this is your relationship, not mine." Ginny shrugged.

"I thought girls loved gossiping about this kind of thing," Sean said, eyebrows raised.

"Or something like that," Ginny shrugged again.

"Ah!" It was Sean's turn to throw his hands up in the air in exasperation. "Fine, it's time for class now; I'll have to talk to her later."

Taylor successfully avoided Sean for the whole day. She would dart in and out of class without looking at him, and never giving him the slight chance of talking to her. It was dinner time finally, and as Sean approached the Gryffindor table and scanned up and down it, noticed that Taylor wasn't there, just as she hadn't been there for lunch.

"Damn. She's going to start starving herself again." He cursed. His mind was whirling around and he felt a sort of panic rising in his throat.

'Whoa, man, calm down.' He told himself. 'Just think, where would Taylor go?' Sean stood there for a moment thinking hard. The library? Perhaps. The Owlery? Maybe. The grounds? Quite possible. The lake – that was where Sean would look first.

But when Sean had waded through the snow to the lake, he found it completely deserted. Nobody was there. After a quick scan of the rest of the grounds, Sean sat down on a tree that had fallen over. So where would Taylor be? Sean decided to climb the stairs up to the Owlery but it was empty except for a few owls and a lot of ice on the stairs. He was beginning to feel really frustrated and annoyed now. Where was Taylor? Why did she always have to jump to the worst conclusion? This whole thing was over some stupid miscommunication, and so now here was Sean, looking for Taylor to tell her that he was going to say just the opposite of what she thought he was going to say. It was all messed up and confusing. He decided to check the library and see if Taylor was hiding in some lonesome corner, but after he had peered into every nook and cranny he was forced to realize that Taylor wasn't there either. Sean scowled and looked at the window. He could see his frustrated face frowning back at him.

Ten minutes later found Sean dragging himself disappointedly through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor Common Room. He saw Ginny's flaming red hair in the corner of the room with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. He walked towards them, hoping that Ginny would have some idea of where Taylor was.

"Hey, Gin," he said as he approached her. She looked up at him with a knowing look on her face.

"Looking for Taylor?" She asked, but it was more of a statement.

"Yeah, I've been all over the place, and I can't find her," Sean said.

"That's because she's up in the Girl's Dormitory." Ginny explained.

"Perfect." Sean said sarcastically. "I can't go up there. Will you tell her that I want to talk with her?" Ginny looked on the point to refuse, probably because she didn't want to involve herself in this situation. "Please?" He added.

"Oh, alright," Ginny consented, giving in. "I'll go tell her, but I'm not making her come down here."

"Fine, just tell her I really want to see her." Sean said, glad that at least Ginny wasn't going to refuse him.

Ginny stood up and made her way across the Common Room to the stairway up to the Girl's Dormitory. Sean stood there, rocking up on his toes and down on his heels nervously.

"What's wrong, Sean?" Hermione asked kindly.

Sean looked at her, deciding what to tell her. He decided on the truth. "Well, I almost said something yesterday, and she took it the wrong way. And now she's mad at me, and I just want to tell her what I was really going to say."

"Oh," said Hermione.

"You have to be careful with girls," Ron said sagely. "They're likely to misinterpret everything you say."

"Because you have oh so much experience with girls," Hermione retorted hotly.

"Well," said Ron slowly, clearly spotting danger, "I'm just saying…" He let his voice trail off.

The awkward moment was broken by Ginny coming down the stairs.

"She says to meet her outside the portrait hole and you two can talk out there," she informed Sean.

'Yes!" Sean exclaimed, making a triumphant gesture. "Thanks a million, Ginny. I owe you one." And with that, Sean hurried across the Common Room and out of the portrait hole. He stood there, at first he leaned up against the wall, then he started pacing back and forth, and then began rocking on his feet again. He was nervous; was Taylor going to just leave him out here and not actually come out? It had to have been at least ten minutes since Ginny had said that Taylor would see him, and the Fat Lady had already asked him five times what he was doing.

Finally the portrait swung open and Taylor climbed out. Sean thought her eyes looked red, and felt a pang of regret that he had caused her this much pain to cry more.

She didn't look him in the eye. "What?" She asked, staring intently at the wall over Sean's shoulder.

"I, er," Sean paused; this was harder than he had thought it was going to be. "So I know you thought that yesterday I was going to tell you that I don't like you anymore." He paused again, but Taylor didn't encourage him to continue.

"And, er, I just wanted to tell you that that's about as opposite from what I was thinking as you can get." His heart was thumping in his chest and his palms were feeling a bit sweaty.

"Er, Taylor?" He asked. She was still staring resolutely over his shoulder. He stepped towards her and put his hand on her cheek, tilting her head down a bit. "Can you look at me?" He asked softly. Taylor blinked twice, and then made eye contact with Sean, who kept his hand on her cheek.

"I care about you Taylor, I care a shit ton." He paused feeling awkward, he had never said anything like this to a girl before.

"Taylor, I care more about you than I ever have for anyone before." Taylor was gazing intently into Sean's pleading eyes.

"Really?" She breathed.

"Yes, really, truly," Sean whispered. And he leaned his head a bit closer to her, searching her eyes. She didn't pull back, and, encouraged, Sean closed the gap between them and kissed Taylor passionately. Slowly Taylor reached her arms up until they were wrapped around his neck and pulled them closer together, Sean's hand still on her cheek.

He felt something wet on his cheek and when he opened his eyes and pulled away from Taylor, he realized that she was crying. And then she started laughing – crying and laughing at the same time. He smiled nervously, not sure what to do now.

"I'm sorry I'm such a fool, Sean," she said as she tried to gain control of herself.

"Oh, come here, you," Sean said, and wrapping his arms around her waist, pulled them back into a tight embrace and kissed Taylor again passionately.

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