A/N: Yes, yes, I've finally written it. THE CLIMAX OF GIRLS IS UP! Thank you to the reviewers for the last chapter. I'm going to reply to each of you at the end. Anyway, I nearly wept when I finished the last chapter. Sirius is supposed to be MINE! But, it's a part of my slowly unfolding plot, and it HAD to happen. *Sniffle* I'll miss you, Sirius. *Clears throat in business-like manner* Okay well, here's chapter 10! Hope you like it!

Girls
by Wolf Speaker

Chapter 10:
Back to Hogwarts

"Will you marry me?"

Charlotte was in disbelieving shock. She had dreamed of this day for almost a year, but she didn't expect it so soon! She truly loved Sirius, and would do anything for him. It was just such a shock she couldn't string two words together.

Sirius was growing paler by the second during Charlotte's silence. A horrible thought occurred to him, as horrible thoughts do when you're nervous. What if she didn't truly love him? What if she was just using him? What if-

"Yes!" Charlotte said all of a sudden.

Sirius felt relief sweeping over him, followed closely by undiluted joy.

"Really? You mean it?" he said, grinning.

"Of course!" said Charlotte, and she leaned over and kissed him.

It took the two a moment to realize everyone was watching. James was grinning, having known all along that Sirius could do it. Lily's eyes were brimming with tears, her hand over her mouth, with one of those "Oh that's soooo sweet!" smiles. Remus was grinning as well, shaking his head at his friend's stupidity. 'Really? You mean it?' Honestly, did Sirius think she would've said yes if she DIDN'T mean it? Peter, on the other hand, was looking at Sirius in disbelief. He was actually going to MARRY her? She was practically a Muggle, the way she acted! I mean, she got excited over getting a CAR when she knew we'd be taking our Apparation tests soon! (A/N: Okay, I'm going to be having Peter's meanie-ish side coming out through the rest of the story, just so you're warned) Peter then reassured himself that this engagement would fall through, and fast.

Linda cleared her throat. Sirius and Charlotte broke off, and everyone turned to Linda.

"I guess you two don't want breakfast then?" she joked.

"Love is all I need; I shall never hunger," said Sirius, mock-dramatically. Then his stomach gave a very loud growl. Everyone laughed and started walking into the kitchen.

"At least that didn't happen when you proposed," said James as Sirius slipped the ring onto Charlotte's finger. Sirius grinned.

"It would have added to the romantic setting!" he protested, still smiling.

"Of course it would have," said Charlotte, rolling her eyes.

"Hey, you shouldn't talk, you're going to be stuck with me the rest of your life!" joked Sirius as they sat down for breakfast.

"Yeah, maybe I should reconsider," said Charlotte. She grinned and kissed Sirius gently on the lips. "Then again," she said, "maybe I shouldn't."

Lily ruined the moment by sniffing loudly.

"I'm sorry," she said, giving them a watery grin. "But this is just soooo sweet!"

Everyone laughed again and started helping themselves to breakfast.

*

"I can't believe this is our last year at Hogwarts," said Charlotte sadly. The group was on the Hogwarts Express on September 1st.

"I know, I don't know what I can do after school," said Lily. "Mum and Dad will want me to stay, of course, but Petunia is going to the local university, which means she's living there too. She wouldn't appreciate it too much if I stayed."

"Yeah, but you could always hex her," said James seriously. "After all, you won't be an underage witch anymore."

Everyone grinned. It was common knowledge what Petunia Evans and her boyfriend Vernon Dursley thought of "their kind".

It was quite a sight the group made. Charlotte and Lily were near tears, and Sirius and James had comforting arms around them. Remus looked sympathetic, but he had sort of a distant look in his eyes, and Peter was trying not to glare at Lily and Charlotte. He had a secret hate growing for both of them. Lily was a Mudblood and nobody liked them, and Charlotte may as well be a Mudblood the way she acted. And what everyone else didn't know was that he had run into the greatest wizard of all time during his summer holiday, before he went to America…

"Peter?" asked Sirius suddenly, jerking him out of his thoughts. "Are you okay? You had the oddest look on your face…."

"Oh, I'm fine," said Peter. "Sorry."

"S'all right," said Sirius calmly. "James was just asking you if you'd like a Chocolate Frog."

"Oh," said Peter, still not fully awake. "Oh, sure."

James and Sirius exchanged a curious glance.

"Peter, are you sure you're all right?" asked James.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said through his bite of chocolate. Everyone laughed. This was the Peter they were used to.

Remus had forced a laugh, but he still looked very distant.

"Hey Moony, what's wrong?" asked Peter.

"Well," said Remus slowly. "See, I got an owl this morning. From Molly."

"Oh no," said Lily quietly. "She didn't- she didn't chuck you did she?"

"As a matter of fact, she did," said Remus. He tried to make it look like he didn't care, but it was obvious to his friends that he was really hurt.

"S'all right mate!" said Sirius happily. "You and her weren't that good together anyway. Molly liked Arthur Weasley since 1st year, she can't deny it."

"I know," said Remus. Suddenly he grinned. "At least there was one thing good about her."

"What would that be?" asked Charlotte. She knew Remus wasn't the kind to say, "I got some from her" or something, but still….

"She gave us that last secret passage so we could make the map," said Remus happily. "I finished it just before I came to Charlotte's place."

"Why didn't you show it to us before?" asked James, jumping up. Sirius beat him to Remus though.

"C'mon, show us!" he said. Sirius's face looked like a little boy's on Christmas morning.

Remus grinned and pulled out an old bit of parchment from his pocket. Lily and Charlotte were confused but all the boys were looking at it happily.

"Um… Sirius?" said Charlotte carefully. "I don't want to disappoint you, but, that's just a bit of parchment."

"Just a bit of parchment?" said Sirius in disbelief. "Charlotte, have you gone mad? This is much more than a bit of parchment! Remus, if you would do the honors?"

"Certainly, Padfoot old friend," said Remus in a business-like fashion. He cleared his throat and tapped the paper with his wand. "Ahem. I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

Suddenly, a map of Hogwarts appeared, showing tiny black dots walking around.

"This is amazing!" said Charlotte. "How did you guys get all of this?"

"Oh, just did a little snooping," said Sirius with an evil grin.

Charlotte looked down at the map again and burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" asked James, looking at the map as well.

"Professor McGonagall! Look at Professor McGonagall!" she laughed.

Everyone looked down at the map and saw the dot that was Minerva McGonagall dancing around her office, twirling around like an idiot. They all laughed.

"This is definitely going to be an interesting year," laughed Lily.

*

"Ack! I can't believe how much homework Professor McGonagall gave us!" complained Charlotte in the common room a couple of weeks later. "You'd think that she expected the world to end and we needed our entire 7th year education to survive!"

"Come on, Char, it's not that bad," said Lily.

"Of course not, you're Head Girl, you love school," grumbled Charlotte.

Lily laughed and blushed a bit. "Just because I'm Head Girl doesn't mean I like school, but McGonagall's given us more homework than this before."

"Then I'm surprised you survived the first 5 years here without me," Charlotte replied. "Hey," she said, looking around. "Where'd Head Boy and Sirius go off too?"

Lily looked around as well. "I don't know, probably to Hogsmeade."

Charlotte sighed. "I told Sirius I wanted to talk to him."

Lily looked at Charlotte over her book. "You know Sirius, he forgets things."

"You mean he forgets he's engaged to someone?" said Charlotte. "He said we'd talk about the wedding tonight."

"Oh," said Lily. She looked slightly embarrassed for bringing it up. "Well, maybe that's why they're in Hogsmeade, after all, they have the best robe shop there other than Madam Malkin's, maybe he's buying you your dress."

Charlotte rolled her eyes. "Yeah right," she muttered. "If Sirius is buying my dress I'm not going to show up for fear of looking like a freak. He'd probably buy a dress that's like green and purple camouflage."

Lily grinned. "Well, then you couldn't say the ceremony was boring."

Charlotte grinned back. "Yeah, we'd make it go down in history as the wedding with the worst fashion sense."

As Lily laughed, Remus came walking over, followed somewhat reluctantly by Peter.

"What's up guys?" asked Charlotte while Lily controlled her giggles.

"Nothing much," said Remus. "We can't find James and Sirius and we figured you might know where they are. I need to show them something on the map."

"Can't you just look on the map and see if they're here?" asked Lily.

"That's just the thing; they're not anywhere on the school grounds," said Remus. "The map ends just at the edges of the forest but they know the dangers of that place and don't go there just because they're bored."

"I'm getting really sick of Sirius's little secrets," muttered Charlotte.

*

"You know, Charlotte's probably getting really sick of me having secrets," muttered Sirius. "Why am I with you again?"

"Because I'm not sure what to get for Lily!" whined James. "You already did this for Charlotte! I need help!"

"We all know that one, Prongs old pal," said Sirius.

"Shut up," said James. "Come on. I set up an appointment at the jewelers down the road."

"You made an appointment?" Sirius said obviously shocked. "I just kind of walked in there and said 'I need a ring can you help me'."

James gave Sirius the "look". It was the look saved especially for Sirius when he was being dim, or when he was toeing the line of annoying shit-head. There was quite a sense of warning in that particular "look" actually.

"Well, I'm really nervous about this I want this to be perfect," said James. He was growing paler by the minute.

"Prongs, if you're this nervous buying the ring, how are you going to ask her?" said Sirius.

"I don't know," James muttered, running his fingers through his already untidy hair. "Just… let's worry about what we're doing now."

Sirius was muttering something about obsessive-compulsive freaks when they reached the jewelers shop. James gave Sirius one last "look" before he walked in.

"Ah, young sirs! You are James Potter, I assume?" said the jeweler.

"Yes, sir," said James politely. "I'm here about an engagement ring…"

A/N: Okay all, there's the 10th chapter, be proud of me. There WAS going to be a bit more but then I realized that that was a good cliff-hanger right about there. So, I'll make you wait some more. *evil grin* Anyway, there's really not much to say, the ending really speaks for itself, I mean, COME ON people, put 2 and 2 together. The next chapter shouldn't take as long as this one did I'm sorry to everyone that had to wait. Please review *puppy dog eyes* and if you're signed in or use your pen name I'll read some of your stories it's the least I could do. Thank you!

~Wolf Speaker