Alrighty! Internet is finally back. And I feel so loved! Thanks for the wonderful reviews. The following chapter ends in sort of a weird place, but it's because it would have been too long if it were part of the next chapter. Disclaimer for this chapter: Radiohead owns "Creep." One thing I have to apologize for: when the only space between two words is a period, it was meant to be ellipses, three periods in a row. I'll try putting spaces between them this time around; see if that works. I'll fix the other chapters if I can. Okay! Here it is, the next chapter.

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Chloe awoke after everybody else that morning. Everyone had already gone down to breakfast by the time she brushed her hair painfully (too many tangles) and got dressed. She took the alone time and sat on her bed, looking at the empty chessboard.

Jane had been right, she was being apprehensive, and Chloe hadn't figured out yet that that was the churning feeling she had deep in her gut. She was apprehensive about going forward with her own life without Sirius's being involved. She probably never would have known that had Jane not brought it up inadvertently. She still felt some of it, but she was glad she knew what it was. One cannot deal with an emotion one does not know one has.

Now that she was past denial, she felt ready to go on a bit. He wasn't going to come back. He was really gone; it wasn't her fault, and it wasn't his. But there certainly wasn't anything she could do to bring him back, and she shouldn't dwell on it too much.

But then there was a tenseness still in her gut that she could only place as anger, anger at the family he'd been angry enough at to leave, anger at her own mother, anger at his cousin, anger at the unfairness of everything.

She heard people coming up the stairs, and she knew breakfast was nearly over. Stella and Jane liked to stay in the Great Hall as long as possible. She got up, stretching, feeling, instead of a gaping hole, a heavy weight deep in her chest. Jane asked what happened to her.

"Went to sleep too late, I guess," she answered. "Overslept."

Jane and Stella nodded. "We were going to lie out in the sun by the lake, you wanna come?" Stella asked her, picking up a towel.

"No thanks, I think I'll just stay in the castle, saying my goodbyes, you know.."

They understood and walked back down in flip-flops and shorts. Chloe smiled when she realized they were both wearing the same pair of expensive sunglasses they'd been so excited to get for Christmas but had had no reason to wear then. They also had some magical use, but Chloe didn't know what it was. The twins had kept it a secret. She sat back down on the bed. She lay all the way back, and suddenly her chest was completely filled again.

She'd been deluding her self that she could get over Sirius that quickly. No, she wasn't in denial, and she wasn't angry, but the grief that had sneaked up on her was now overwhelming her. She crawled up to her pillow and sobbed into it. Everything was so unfair, how would she live without him, he'd been everything. "I can't take it," she sobbed into the pillow.

She got up onto her knees, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her Gryffindor sweater. She took out her wand and played the first thing that came to mind, which was 'Creep' by Radiohead. She sat on her heels, looking down at her palms. She and Sirius had dragged razors across the lifelines of their palms so that they would scar over and be more prominent. The irony of it opened the floodgate, and soon her palms might as well have been lakebeds.

She let herself cry for a few minutes, letting everything go. Finally, she let out a shuddering sigh and sat cross-legged. She imagined Sirius singing the song to her. He'd never actually done that, but she imagined what it would have been like had he done so. She shook her head.

"You're just like an angel, your skin makes you cry, you float like a feather in a beautiful world . . . but I'm a creep. I'm a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here." And suddenly it wasn't Sirius singing the song to her, but she to him. "I want a perfect body, I want a perfect soul. I want you to notice when I'm not around . . . wish I was special, but I'm a creep. I'm a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here . . ." She got up, shoving her wand into her pocket, the song still playing. "She runs, runs, runs." She headed toward the room she'd never visited. "But I'm a creep. I'm the weirdo."

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I know it's a strange place to stop, but the special room is just one chapter away! Exciting, huh? Maybe not. NOTE: I know the issue of dragging razors across palms might be seen as controversial, so let me say that I meant no offense. Their intent was not 'Let's be depressed and cut ourselves,' nothing like that. It was more 'Let's get matching tattoos to show our everlasting love.' Right. Please don't be angry. It is just part of this story. Okay! On a lighter note: the next chapter includes a lot of stuff and will be quite long, so be prepared to sit in front of the screen for a while. I might even have to cut it into two more chapters. . . we'll see. I really like reviews, so review if you like the story! *_*