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Chapter 3 "If only"

One night a few weeks later Sirius lay tossing and turning in bed. He couldn't get to sleep because for some reason he couldn't keep a beautiful girl with stunning blue eyes out of his head. He threw his covers off impatiently and sat up, rubbing his eyes with his palms. He glanced at his clock. 5:45. He decided to go downstairs and work on some homework or something until it was time for breakfast.

He dug up some potions books and pulled on a shirt before heading down to the common room. But when he got there, he found it wasn't empty. The very reason he hadn't been able to go to sleep was sitting on one of the many windowseats. As he looked at her, he couldn't help smiling. She was so beatiful. Her hair was back in a very loose braid and thin whisps of it were falling out onto her pale face. She was staring up at the stars with that peaceful expression that she always had in her eyes. Somehow Sirius felt that the scene was too beautiful and peaceful to be disturbed, so he stood still, watching her.

He was about to walk up to her, when he saw a single tear roll down her soft cheek. And then another, and another. Sirius was shocked. He had never seen Mercy cry before. She was the strong sort of girl who never let anything get to her or upset her. Sirius hated to see her cry, he never wanted her to be hurt, never. Whoever had hurt her had hurt him, too. It was probably some idiot Slytherin who couldn't keep his mouth shut and had said something about her being a half-blood. Sirius muttered various gruesome things that he would do to the Slytherin when he got his hands on him as he walked towards Mercy. "Hey." He said quietly as he touched her shoulder softly. Her head jerked up and Sirius felt his heart pang as he saw her gorgeous blue eyes filled with tears. She quickly whiped them away. "Hi." She whispered. Sirius dropped his books on the floor and sat on the window seat by her. She gave him a small smile before looking back out the window. "What's wrong?" Sirius asked softly. Her eyes filled with tears again but she didn't look down at Sirius. "My-my dad-" She stopped and brushed another tear away as it fell. "He's sick. With a muggle disease. There is a cure but only for magical people, it doesn't work on muggles." She brushed away another tear angrily. 'She's mad at herself for crying!' Sirius thought. "I'm so sorry." He whispered. He didn't know what to say. He wanted to comfort her, to take her in his arms and kiss away every tear. His heart felt like it was about to burst. He couldn't stand to see her like this, broken. It reminded him of that day all those years ago when he had seen his father cry for the first time. Only now he had nothing to take his anger out on, you couldn't beat up a disease.

She sighed and Sirius cringed at how full of pain and sorrow it sounded. "Why- why didn't you tell us?" He asked tenderly. She looked down at her hands. Her eyebrows were drawn together in an attempt to stop the flow of tears. "I just found out this morning, I-I really couldn't talk about it. I haven't told anyone else yet, except for you. I know they would try to comfort me, but I needed to-to be alone, for a little while." Sirius nodded. "I know how you feel." She looked up at him in surprise. 'Apparently she thinks what everyone else must think.' Sirius thought. 'That I'm just a happy-go-lucky guy who never had any hard times or pain. Who just sorta cruised through life as though there was nothing to it'. He looked out the window and fixed his eyes on a star. He didn't know if he could talk about it without some tears welling up and he really didn't want her to see that. "My mother left when I was 5." His voice sounded much stronger than he thought it would. "Oh, that must have been terrible! I'm so sorry." Sirius turned to look at her now. She was amazing. He didn't understand how she could comfort someone else like that when she herself was filled with pain, probably much more pain than Sirius was feeling. "It isn't the same as yours, though." He said, still keeping eye contact with her. "I mean I was only five, I didn't know my mother that well. Are you and your father-well-close?" She nodded as her eyes filled with tears again. 'What a stupid thing to say, Sirius! Were you trying to make her cry again?' He thought angrily to himself. He needed to do something. Obviously his words weren't going to do any good, so he reached out and covered her thin, pale hand with his strong tanned one. To his relief she didn't cringe or pull her hand away.

"My father has a poem that he always tells me whenever I want something, or am worried about something. I know that's what he would tell me know. I can almost hear his voice." She whispered as she looked back out the window. There was a few minutes of silence and even though Sirius didn't want to leave her like this, he thought maybe he should leave now, maybe Mercy wanted to be alone. Maybe him holding her hand was making her uncomfortable. But he stopped worrying about this when she began quoting a poem, obviously the one that she had been talking about a few mintues before.

"If only, if only!" The star cries to the night. "If only I were like the sun! Oh! That I were that bright!"

"If only, if only!" The fish cries to the sea. "If only I were happier! Oh! that I were carefree!"

"If only, if only!" The bird cries to the sky. "If only I could rest! Oh! That I no longer had to fly!"

"If only, if only!" The world cries out to nothing. Nothing, empty and lonely. "Oh! If only, if only!"

She finished the poem in a whisper, the light from the moon flowing through the window and glistening on her pale hair and tear-streaked face. Sirius gave her hand a gentle squeeze and she seemed to remember that he was there. She gave him an embarassed smile. "I don't know where he got it from. He might have made it up or something." She said with a shrug. "I really liked it." Sirius said. The truth was he had hardly listened to the words at all. He had been too busy listening to the soft tone of her voice and watching the moonlight shining in her eyes. But he hadn't exactly told a lie, because he had liked hearing her recite it. "Well we'd better go get ready for breakfast now, I guess." She said with a sigh. "Yeah, I guess so." Sirius said reluctantly. "Thanks for everything, Sirius." He just nodded. He didn't feel as if he'd done her a favor, he felt like it was the other way around.

They both stood up and headed up to their dormitories to dress and wake their friends up for breakfast.

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Sirius had a hard time concentrating on anything the rest of the day. James and Remus could guess what was causing their friends lack of attention, and James made fun of him all day. Normally Remus would have too, but he had other things on his mind. The guys, including Remus, had decided that they would have to tell Lily, Kat, and Mercy about Remus's 'situation'. Lily and Kat had been drilling them with questions about where they go every month, and were very upset that they kept getting "Nowhere" for an answer. Even Remus agreed that the best thing they could do was to tell them the truth.

When they had decided this, they had planned to do it immediatly, but Remus kept managing to put it off a little longer. James and Sirius were patient with him, though, they knew how difficult this had to be for him. Peter didn't really care either way, as long as they didn't leave him out of their discussions.

A few weeks after Sirius and Mercy's talk, Remus finally agreed that it had to happen that night. He dropped things all day and got scolded from several different teachers. Once they were all sitting together in the Common Room, Remus, looking very pale and like he was about to puke, nodded firmly to James. The four boys stood up and walked over to where the three girls were studying and chatting in front of the fire. "Hey, can y'all please come up to our dorm for a minute? We have something very important to tell you." James whispered. They all looked confused, and at first Lily looked they she was going to refuse, thinking that some huge prank was waiting for them there, but when she looked at Remus's face she knew it had to be something serious and they all stood up and followed the guys upstairs.

After everyone was seated in a circle on the floor of the 7th year boys dorm, James stood up and cleared his throat. Remus was shaking all over and his face was deathly pale. "Remus, what's wrong?" Kat asked fearfully. Remus just shook his head without looking at her. He didn't know if he could stand to look at her right now.

"Um..." James started. The 3 girls instantly looked away from Remus and up at James. "You've been wondering why we've been sneeking out every month for a while now. um...." He ran his fingers through his hair the way he always did when he was nervous and threw a worried look at Remus before continuing. "You see...Remus...Remus..." His hands were shaking as they ran through his hair again. "What?" Kat whispered so softly that no one would have been able to hear it if it hadn't been completely silent. "He didn't want to tell you, because he was afraid of what-what you might think." James tried to explain. "For goodness sakes, tell us what?" Lily almost yelled. "Remus is a..a...." James faltered. "Just tell them, Prongs." Remus said in a hollow, empty voice. "He's a werewolf." James whispered with difficulty.

There was complete silence for a full 5 minutes at least. Remus's face was buried in his hands. "You guys are terrible." Lily said, finally breaking the silence. "How could you play an awful joke like that? Just look what it did to Kat!" Remus moaned loudly at this and bent over as if he were in pain. "It isn't a joke, Lil!" James said seriously. "Yeah right! You actually expect us to believe something like that! Remus a werewolf? Please! Then why do all of y'all go, instead of just him, huh?" She said with a look of triumph. "Well...you see in our first year, when we found out about Remus, we thought it would be cool to give him some company when he was in his...his other form, and we found out that animals aren't affected by the werewolf's bite. So me and Sirius started researching about Animagus, and in our 3rd year we finally figured it out. So me, Sirius, and Peter are all Animagus and during the full moon we explore the forest with Remus and stuff." Lily laughed out loud at this. "You don't believe me? Peter is a rat, Sirius is a dog, and I'm a stag." Lily snorted with laugher. "A stag? James..." But she stopped short in shock. James had just turned into a giant white stag. Her mouth fell wide open, and stayed that way even after he had turned back. "Oh-my-goodness..." She stuttered. Kat and Mercy remained completely silent, looks of disbelief etched on both their faces, but Kat was in complete shock. After a few seconds of complete silence Remus couldn't stand it anymore. He stood up and stumbled out of the room clutching his stomach, almost tripping over Peter's trunk. "Kat, why are you just sitting there?" Mercy asked. Kat immediatly shot up and ran out of the door, following Remus.

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A/N: Hey I went a little longer on that one! Apperantly no one likes this story considering I only have two reveiws, but It's a fun one to write cuz it's got lots of fluff in it. I love fluff. Don't you? Well in the next chapter we'll find out what happens with Remus and Kat and some other stuff to. It'll probably be about a week before it's up, maybe less. For the two people who care, anyway. ;) Pleeeeaaaase if you have any kindness or mercy (hehe...mercy...) whatsoever, please review this! i don't care if it stinks! reveiw it anyway! ~Eowyn