A/N: There are clues, but major stuff goes down in the background of this chapter that won't be talked about explicitly until Darkly. Sirius doesn't know what's going on at this point, though, and this is his story, so it's not essential to know what's up to follow his character development.

xx

Chapter Twenty-Four: Blast This Door Down

On Friday morning, all the Marauders oversleep. On Wednesday, after Regulus told him about Bellatrix, Sirius actually went to bed shockingly early—all the crying must have worn him out or something—but last night, he stayed up until at least four in the morning talking to Moony, James, and Peter before they all finally collapsed. James usually makes them wind down well before that, but—

—They did lie down around midnight, but after about two minutes of this, Sirius quickly realized he wasn't going to be able to sleep without picturing increasingly violent scenarios involving Bellatrix and her husband. When he got back up, the others did, too. Besides, it's the middle of Moony's cycle, which means the color in his cheeks has been something close to normal, and James isn't quite so worried about him not getting enough sleep.

By the time they make it to the Great Hall that morning, they've only got about five minutes to cram as much food as they can down their throats before they've got to take off for Potions. Marlene and Alice are gone by the time they get there; in the Entrance Hall, they brush right past Emmeline, who's clutching a black envelope in her hands and doesn't seem to hear James when he says hello to her; but Mary's still absorbed in her copy of Witch Weekly at the table, so they all plunk down next to her and load themselves up with as much bacon as they can manage to get in their mouths.

Sirius is expecting the five of them to be the last ones to enter Slughorn's dungeon, but when they get there, there's one person missing. "Anybody know where Em is? I saw her coming out of the Great Hall before I even got there—I would have thought she'd be here by now."

"She said she was going to skip," says Marlene, who's pulling out Mary's chair for her. "Dunno why, though. She didn't give us a reason."

Potions is kind of lonely without Em there to brew with him; Evans always pairs off with Snape in this class, so there's nobody else he can sit with. Without anybody to talk to, Sirius finds himself spending the whole hour obsessing over the whole mess with Bellatrix and Regulus and Mum the most that he has since his meltdown on Wednesday. All day yesterday, he managed to keep himself distracted—with homework, with friends, with putting the final touches on the spell that's going to get them into the Restricted Section of the library—but by the time the bell rings, he's worked himself up into a right state.

Emmeline's not in Muggle Studies afterward, either, and he finds himself wondering whether she's feeling sick or something—after all, if she were skiving off for the hell of it, she would have invited him to come with her to Hogsmeade or something during class time. But it's when she never shows up to lunch that Sirius starts to get seriously worried.

As they're getting up, he reaches into his bag for his Transfiguration essay and hands it to James. "Can you give this to McGonagall for me? I'm going to skip."

"Yeah, but—"

"You've got the Map, right? Can I borrow it?"

"Yeah, of course, but why—"

"I don't know yet. It might be nothing, but…" Sirius trails off as James fishes for it in his bag.

Everybody else has started walking out of the Great Hall, with the exception of Alice, who's politely waiting behind for them; James shoos her off, promising he'll catch up to her in Transfiguration.

When James hands it to him, Sirius thanks him quickly and dashes out of there before James can say another word. He doesn't bother taking it all the way up to Gryffindor Tower: he just stops by the nearest boys' loo, ducks into a stall, and whispers, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

It takes him a bit to find Emmeline on the Map; while he's looking, he hopes she's not in the girls' dormitory, where he knows he won't be able to reach her. When he spots her name off of one of the dungeons, he feels a brief, bright flash of triumph, but it's quickly replaced by doubt. What's Em doing down in the dungeons when she should be in Transfiguration? It's not like it's Slughorn's dungeon, either: she's in a wing of the basement that's usually abandoned.

He makes a quick mental note of her location, but he needs to duck around corners so he can pull the Map out a couple more times on the walk over, just to make sure he's heading the right direction—he doesn't go down this way often. Finally, in the correct and otherwise deserted corridor, he holds the Map in front of him and glances down at it every few seconds in order to hit on the right location.

As it turns out, Em isn't in a dungeon at all: she's in a broom cupboard between dungeons. He doesn't think it would be very polite to just barge in there unannounced, so after a moment's deliberation, he tucks the Map back in his bag and knocks on the closet door. "Em? You in there?"

There's no answer.

"Em?"

Silence.

"I'm coming in, okay?"

The door is locked, so he Alohamoras it—but even after he does so, he still can't turn the handle. She's not—holding it in place, is she? Does she really want to be alone that badly?

He hears a sniffle.

"Em, get out of the way before I blast this door down."

"Go away," comes the reply.

And it scares him a little because she sounds nothing like herself. Sirius has seen Emmeline happy, anxious, excited, scared, mad, horny, sad—pretty much all over the possible range of human emotion—but he's never heard her voice sound so soft and choked and gravelly. It's wavering, but not in a high-pitched way like she's going to lose control of it and start crying: her voice is trembling way down low, like she's livid, like she's shattered.

He takes out his wand and Reductos the door.

And Emmeline—he's never seen this look on her face before. She's beyond devastated: she's unrecognizable. "I told you to go," she says in that same scary-low voice. Her hands are shaking. Her legs are shaking. Her eyes are huge and puffy.

"Em, what the hell happened? If something's wrong, I swear, I can shove my impending mental breakdown aside so I can—"

"I don't need you here. I don't even want you here. You've done enough."

He wracks his brains to try to figure out what that means—what he could have possibly done to get her pissed at him—but the last heavy conversation they had was on Wednesday, when she was comforting him about Bellatrix and Regulus, and she'd been totally fine and normal through classes and meals and in the common room all of yesterday. "If—if I've done something, I'm sorry. Can't you tell me—?"

Her lips wobble, and she turns her back on him. "Go before I curse you," she rasps.

"Emmeline—"

She whips back around, reaching for her wand, and he throws his hands up into the air and backs himself up against what remains of the splintered door.

"Hey. We can—we can work this out, can't we? Whatever's happened—whatever I did—I made you a promise. I promised I would wait, and that means that if I ever screw something up, I'll make it right. You just have to tell me what's going on so I can—"

"I already told you: I don't want or need you, not anymore."

"But we said—"

"I don't give a rat's ass what we said. Deal's off, Black. No more promises. No more us. We're through."

And to hear that from the girl he promised himself to—just days after Bellatrix, weeks after Regulus—once again, everything is moving both too fast and too slowly. His heart thumps. His feet sweat. His cheeks and neck heat up.

"Emmeline, please. I can't lose you. Do you understand that? I can't lose you. I won't—pressure you into anything you don't want to do or anything. We don't have to date. We can just—be what we've been, if that's what you want. But I—"

She takes out her wand and Impedimentas him into the hallway.

xx

Just when he'd thought he was finding his footing again—just when he'd told himself his friends were going to get him through this—he went and lost one of his very best ones, and he doesn't even know what he did. It's like losing Regulus all over again—but at least that had been gradual; at least he'd seen the writing on the walls and been able to brace himself for that. This time—Sirius thinks he'd be willing to do anything to get Emmeline back. He'd let Bellatrix send Death Eaters after him. He'd drop out of Hogwarts and live out the rest of his days with Mum and Dad and Kreacher in Grimmauld Place.

The thing is, Sirius always envisioned himself as the one who wouldn't be able to hold up his end of the bargain. He never considered that it might be Emmeline—that it might happen so soon and suddenly—that he would lose not just his sort-of future girlfriend, but his friend.

It feels worse than he ever could have imagined—but he knew all along that this would happen if and when he lost one of his friends, didn't he? He knew he would be crushed. He knew he wouldn't be able to handle it. He knew he was growing way too dependent on them—much more than was healthy—and that that dependency was going to catch up to him eventually.

But—Sirius just thought he had more time. He was so naive as to think that he had years, maybe even decades, before he'd ever lose anybody. He thought the bonds he'd made at Hogwarts were unbreakable—

But his bond with Emmeline certainly was breakable. Does that mean all his other relationships are just as tenuous? Is everybody else going to leave him, too? Moony—Peter—James—

If Sirius loses James—

"Black?"

He pulls himself up from the library table he's slumped over and meets Marlene's wide, concerned eyes. His first reaction is to want her to just go away. A few heavy conversations and their mutual friends notwithstanding, Sirius and Marlene have never been particularly close; sure, he likes her well enough, but it's not like he needs her, not the way he needs Emmeline. Right now, he needs to be around the people he needs—the people who might be the only ones capable of picking him back up from the shambles he's found himself drowning in.

But—he needs Emmeline, and he can't have that. He needs the Marauders, too, but it's not like they can give him what he and Em were supposed to—

—And then it hits him.

And at the same time as it hits him, he knows he's going to regret it. Marlene may not be his best friend, but he knows her well enough to know that she struggles with the same dependencies that he does. If he sucks her into his vortex knowing full well that they're vulnerable in all the same ways—knowing he's too deformed to give her anything real—

—But what everybody else calls "real"—how can that be the answer? The only reals that Sirius knows are loveless betrothals and promises that neither party can keep. Maybe the answer is just to—take what feels good. Right? If they don't expect anything from each other—if they know the whole time that they're not going to get attached—maybe that's what's real. Maybe the thing that's going to heal him is caring enough about somebody not to entangle them in all his baggage.

Because he does care about Marlene. She is his friend, and he wants good things for her—wants her to be happy—and it would be a hell of a good feeling to actually make somebody happy after so many months of taking advantage of everyone in his life. This life may have annihilated him enough that he doesn't have much left to give away, but—he knows how to kiss, and it'll make them both feel good, won't it? Amidst all this taking, at least he can give this one person one damn thing.

So he gets up and grabs her and—

At first, when she doesn't react, he thinks he's overstepped—but then Marlene starts to kiss him back. It feels nothing like kissing Emmeline felt, and yet at the same time, it's the same rush, the same high. She's more timid than Emmeline was; it makes Sirius slow down, try to make it good for her.

The guilt is there, stronger than ever, for reasons he still doesn't fully understand—but there's pleasure, too, so much of it there might even be enough to overpower it. How can the guilt win when he feels this good? How can Emmeline—Bellatrix—Regulus hurt him when he feels this good?

This is okay, he tells himself. There's nothing wrong with a bit of kissing, especially not when it's so nice.

His lips move down to her neck.

They're in a far corner of the library; there's nobody around to see them. Hell, Sirius doubts Madam Pince can even hear them up at her desk.

Five minutes later, his left hand reaches into Marlene's robes, while his right goes for his wand as he mutters a quick Silencio.

Two minutes after that, he backs them against the wall and—

xx

—But the guilt comes back, and when it does—

—If he'd thought it was bad when he kissed Emmeline, that had nothing on what it feels like after losing his virginity to Marlene.

Sure, it's fine at first. It's better than fine. The rush he gets—the release—he never could have imagined how unbelievably good that would feel. He's never done anything close to this before—not with Em, not even alone—and now, for the first time in his life, he can really understand why grownups like it so much.

But—yeah, she's pureblood, but they're not married. They're not betrothed. They don't even love each other—not like that. He would have wanted—if he wasn't going to wait until his arranged marriage was enacted like a good pureblood boy, he should have at least waited until he found somebody he really cared about.

Marlene? Before today, he'd never even given her a second thought. And now—

They didn't even use protection. Sirius doesn't even know how to use protection. Sure, he knew the basic mechanics of how this thing works—he knows it makes babies—but he doesn't really know how to stop it from making babies. If Marlene is pregnant—

He's only fifteen. She's only fourteen. They don't love each other, and Sirius—his whole life fell apart this year. He can't—they can't—

"Are we going to talk about this?" Marlene whispers.

"You need to go see Madam Pomfrey," he whispers back. "If we—if that—"

"But—I can't. It's illegal, Sirius. I don't know if they would—fine us or send us to Azkaban or—but I can't—"

"It… okay. Okay. So—we'll dig around the library for information, okay? And you can just… tell me if…"

"I'll let you know when I get my next—if I get my period."

Sirius knows so little that he doesn't entirely know what that means—something about bleeding down there? He's never really understood how girls manage to go about their day without getting blood all over their robes—but he's not about to tell Marlene how ignorant he is about all of this. "It's going to be okay," he says, more for his own benefit than hers. "It'll be fine. We have a plan, right?"

"Yeah. And next time—"

"Next time?"

They look at each other blankly for a second, and then Marlene kind of—winces. "Oh," she mutters. "I just assumed… I thought…"

"Um," says Sirius. "We're—we're here now, right? In the library. So we may as well—get started. What section do you think we should be looking in? Healer stuff, or…?"

The good news, he reflects that night when he's lying in his bed with the curtains shut, is that for the last few hours, he hasn't had a thought to spare for Em or Regulus or any of it. When the guilt and terror and shame get to be too much, there in the dark, he closes his eyes and tries to memorize the way it felt to be inside another person, so that he remembers how good it was—so that it wasn't all for nothing.