Ah! Thank you all for the wonderful reviews. I'm updating this again already because I won't be able to until the end of the week, possibly next week. I'll wait until a few more updates to clear things up because it's possible some questions will be answered in subsequent chapters. Happy reading!

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By the last one of her rooms, through a trapdoor in one of the lesser-used Arithmancy classrooms (there were a number of them), her stomach was painfully clenched, and her hair was rightly knotted and tangled. Chloe sat against the wall of the small room, which was really more of an enlarged pit, breathing deeply and facing the opposite wall. A vision of how they first met played behind her eyelids.

Chloe was well into her fifth year and she knew exactly who Sirius Black was. Her mother often criticized him, not for what he did, but that he did it so blatantly that he got caught. Chloe, personally, hated him, just like she hated her dead father. He was dead for a reason, he got what was coming to him, and she believed that about Sirius, whom she'd believed, like her mother, was a Voldemort supporter.

Then, after a quidditch game, when she'd decided to take the long way round back to the castle, she'd seen a black dog at the edge of the forest, along with a ginger cat. This seemed a strange combination. It wasn't until most everyone had gone back that she entered the forest and followed the tracks.

She hadn't gone very far when she bumped into a grown man with stringy black hair, bloodshot eyes, and a dirty, unshaven face. Underneath all that, though, she could tell he'd have been fairly handsome. He surprised her, and she'd fallen back, but he'd caught her. He'd said something; she couldn't remember. She was too shocked. But it somehow got them talking, and after hearing his story sometime later, she believed him. Later, she learned that he had hated his family just as much as she did hers for just the same reasons. From then on, the two could barely be parted whenever there was no reason not to be.

The scene played over and over again, images of his drawn face, which she knew betrayed much more than physical pain, appearing the most. It was a pain shared, and she'd never forget it. A few shadows passed over the wall, and she heard uneven footsteps in the doorway as the light went on. Somebody was walking with a cane. She heard two voices, one young and male, the other older and female.

"Potter . . . Harry, please wait here for the time being," the older voice said, and Chloe recognized it to be McGonagall's. She could tell the professor was trying to be sympathetic without breaking into tears. Chloe heard her walk away and guessed Harry had nodded. She heard some more footsteps; Harry was coming closer to her corner of the room. He must have caught sight of the open trapdoor, because a few moments later, his face was in the opening.

Chloe just looked at him, and he just looked at her. They remained silent for what seemed like an hour to Chloe, but was only a number of seconds before Harry broke the silence. "What are you doing down here?" he asked, sounding thoroughly befuddled.

"Thinking," she answered quietly. "It's a good place for that. Maybe you'll use it next year."

He nodded. He seemed much more downcast than he usually did from what she could see, and she'd been watching him ever since she met Sirius. She'd give him updates on his condition when she saw him; that way he'd worry less and have more fun. That was certainly something Sirius loved to do.

"You can come down here, you know," she said, not liking having to crane her neck. Harry looked toward the door, and then he jumped down. Chloe didn't think he cared much if he missed whomever he was meeting. "Who are you here for?"

It took him a second to process and answer the question. "Someone from the Ministry wanted to come ask me a few questions, but I've been told not to answer."

"I don't think they'll mind if you're fashionably late," she said, trying to be as nice as possible. She was glad when he chuckled a little.

"I don't think so either. So you come down here a lot?" he queried.

"When I've got things I need to digest, and I don't mean food. And when there are things I'd like to get away from."

"Which are you here for now?"

"Both, I guess," she answered after a beat. Thinking about it again made her chest hurt. He nodded again. She noticed then that he was against the wall next to her, his knees up to his chest, his chin resting on his knees. She tried to imagine being in his shoes for a moment. He'd lost his parents, was raised by fools who treated him like dirt, was being hunted by the Dark Lord, and had just lost the only family member he ever really had because he had so much love for him. It made her heart break again. She wished there were a way to help ease his pain. "My father's dead," she said after a long silence. "And my mother tells me I'm nothing."

She was staring straight ahead, tears running down her cheeks again. She heard a strangled sob next to her. "It isn't fair, life, is it?" she said, turning to him. She saw his cheeks weren't dry either. He shook his head this time. "But you know, it isn't fair for anyone, anyone at all. We're all in the same boat, I guess. Pretty shitty that it's storming all the time, though."

Harry finally turned to her. Neither could see without something being blurry. It started in the pit of his stomach, a low huffing sound that turned into a rumble, then a chortle. The room was quickly filled with the sound of the fifteen-year-old boy's laughter. Chloe smiled, now laughing, too. Before they knew it, they were hugging each other, shaking with laughter and sobs. Neither could believe the situation they were in, but they kept on for quite a while.

A quarter of an hour later, they were unattached, both had dry cheeks, and both were chatting quietly. They talked about animagi, they talked about quidditch, they talked about how Transfiguration got harder in the later years, but the work itself wasn't that hard, it was only more complex. She prophesied that Harry would become an Auror, and Harry guessed Chloe would be the best satire columnist the Daily Prophet would ever get their hands on.

She agreed with him, and then began talking about the idiosyncrasies of centaurs when they heard footsteps at least 10 seconds down the hall. Harry stood, poking his head out of the trapdoor. "That's him," he whispered, popping back down. "He's got someone with him, and he's talking up a storm."

"I guess you'd better go, then. Close the door after you leave," she added as he climbed out. "And Harry?" she said as he was covering the square hole. He stopped and looked back down.

"Yes?"

"I'm really sorry about Sirius. I know it's hard, but you'll move on, I promise."

"How'd you.." But Harry never finished his sentence. He dropped the door just as the Ministry man burst into the room. Chloe listened as best she could, but it was hard to hear with the door closed. She waited until all the sounds had stopped to leave her little chamber, and looking out the window, she found that night had fallen. It was too late to visit that other room.

She sprinted down to the Great Hall, thankful that there were still a few people eating. She sat down, grabbed some fruit, drank a glass of pumpkin juice, and left the hall, going back to her dorm. The last thing she said to Harry had been easy to say, but it was nearly impossible for her to believe.

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That's all. Hope you liked it! More things will happen in the next few chapters, and more songs. ^o^ (It's supposed to be a bat.) TTFN.