What Was I Thinking

Draco slouched against the library door. Madame Pince was on a short vacation and as such, the library hadn't been open for the last three days. He spent most of his time there away from Harry and his aunt. He still sometimes believed that his aunt would leave him. He heard a shuffling sound down the darkened hall. "What do you want?" Sirius stepped out of the shadows. "To borrow a book." "Pince won't be back until Tuesday." "Bugger." "Yeah, exactly." Sirius leaned against the door and slowly dropped to the floor to sit next to the huddled Slytherin. "What book you looking for?" "How to Apologize to Poor Gits. I think Darcy wrote the Muggle version." "Ah." Draco scowled. "That's all you have to say? Make me proud, Black." "Okay. This is about Ron." "And again your intelligence, or rather lack there of, amazes me." "Purely an academic interest in this book, I'm sure." "Of course." Sirius smirked, "If you can't find the one you're looking for, you could always try Screw 'Em. I think I wrote that one."

Draco laughed before forcing his grin back into a scowl. "Go away, Black." "No." "Why not?" "You want a story? Let's see. Once upon a time there lived a bastard." "So original." "Thank you. Anyway, this bastard, he was friends with his cousin for all of his childhood. They learned Quidditch together. They learned simple spells together. They even went to Diagon Alley to get their school books together." Draco snarled, "All this togetherness is sickening." Sirius shrugged innocently, "Well, they rode the train together. They went to the Sorting Ceremony together. But there, the bastard met this kid. His name was James. The bastard liked this kid. He was funny. The bastard went up and got sorted into Gryffindor. This other kid got sorted after him. He was shy and quiet, but the bastard liked him well enough." "Is there a point to this run on sentence of a story?" "Absolutely. So, finally James gets sorted. He ends up in Gryffindor which ended up being a pretty good thing in the long run. The bastard started paying attention to when his cousin got up there. The cousin sat there a long time. He kept staring at the bastard. The hat finally decided to put the cousin into Slytherin. And the bastard. he didn't care. His cousin was now the enemy." "This is supposed to reassure me?" "I'm getting to the point." "Finally." "The bastard, one night in his fifth year, decided that he'd had enough of his cousin. The boy was nosy and liked to pick on the bastard's shy friend. So he arranged for something to happen. Something really bad. He made sure that his cousin would have no choice but to satisfy his curiosity. His cousin could have been killed. But it didn't matter to the bastard." "So, let me guess." Draco said, "I'm the bastard, and the Weasel is the cousin?" Sirius chuckled, "Not exactly. The point is that the bastard thought that House lines had ripped apart his friendship with his cousin. It really happened that night when his cousin was rescued by someone he hated. The point, Malfoy, is that the bastard should have saved his cousin. But he didn't." "So, it's true." Sirius looked at Draco. "What's true?" "You tried to kill Snape."

"Yeah, I did." "So fix it." "It's not that easy. You and Harry are lucky. You don't have attempted murder between you." Draco sneered at his cousin's godfather. "You're afraid." "Maybe." "Of what?" "That even if I said I was sorry. that even if I groveled on my hands and my knees. that he would still hate me." "This is one of those 'don't let this happen to you stories?'" "I guess." "And the moral is?" "Ron may never believe that you've changed. The compromise is there not for the two of you but for Harry. He shouldn't have to choose." "You made Snape choose." Sirius sighed, "No. I chose willingly before that night. I chose to act as I did. And now, for the rest of my life, I'll pay for it. Moony will, too." "He wasn't aware of what was going on." "It doesn't matter. Not to either of them." "So why do you fight with Snape so much?" "If I'm sorry, you mean?" Draco nodded. "Sometimes it hurts less to act like I hate him, too. Then I don't have to feel anything when we fight." "That's sick, Black." "Takes one to know one." Draco leaned his head back against the door. "Aunt Lily sent you after me." "No. Moony did." "Why?" Sirius decided to be honest. "I don't know." Draco stood up and started off down the hall. "Black." Sirius looked up. "What?" "Grovel." "It's too late for that." Draco stopped at the head of the stairs and called back, "Don't be a bastard again, Black. At least let him choose. You got to last time." He walked down the stairs, leaving Sirius sitting outside of the library in silent thought.