A/N- this chapter is much longer and proved quite difficult to write, because it holds a lot of valuable plot devices. So you better enjoy it! (One more note- after the next few chapters are posted I will be going on an exchange program in France for about two and a half weeks. After that, I'll be back for probably four days in which I will post the remainder of the chapters before leaving for Boston for five weeks. (I've got a busy summer planned). To those of you who have still stuck with me at that point, I would be great if you could still give me a review for each chapter. That would make me feel quite special when I got back! Also, please spread the word about my story (if you like it, at least) and I will love you forever! Lol. Anyway, sorry for making that so long, you're probably dying of boredom. To my reviewers...

Professor-fidget- thanks for your reviews! If you check on yours for STORY OF A LONELY GUY you'll see that I've finally gotten around to checking out some of your writing, and what I've read so far, I really like!

Star of the Muses- sorry about all the cliffies. But they're so fun, don't you admit? And don't worry, you'll see more interaction when it's ready to happen, I've got it all mapped out. Thanks for reviewing!

MidnightPrincess- thanks for the reviews! I'm not gonna tell what will happen next, but keep reading! You'll find out more now...

Snuffles2984- again, thank you so much for reviewing me! I feel like I'm getting autographs when I read your comments, lol. Great job on chapter 11 of fallen, too! (.

Hey! I've got 20 reviews! Now only 80 more to go before I reach my goal, 100. {Evil twin laughs maniacally, I sigh...}

Disclaimer-If I owned Harry Potter, the world would be a very different place... But I don't. So keep your pants on.

CHAPTER FIVE

A Problem is Represented

 Sirius stared. What was she doing here? He knew he should have grabbed her, shook her, made her understand that she couldn't tell a soul. But he didn't do anything. He couldn't. He could not move or think. He only stood there, staring at her, trying hopelessly to tear his eyes away from her staggering, shameless gaze. She had seen, he thought. She had seen. She knows. But as he stood and watched her eyes turn a steely gray-blue in the dark, reflecting off the light of the moon, she turned and ran, holding a bundle under her arms. Sirius watched her turn up toward the castle.

"Sirius!" cried James. "Sirius stop her, what are you doing?" His screams echoed and faded into the night.

Sirius turned. James was looking both confused and outraged. He let out a moan of frustration as Peter looked on. Remus, however, was staring straight at Sirius.
Without another word, Sirius turned and ran blindly back up to the castle behind the girl. He heard voices calling out his name from behind, but he didn't pay them any attention. As he too turned toward the direction of Hogwarts, he expected to see her sprinting a few yards ahead. He was surprised to see that she wasn't, however. In spite of himself, Sirius found that he was marveling at her speed as he tried to put as much distance as possible between him and the marauders. He didn't know what to do. If he decided to go straight to the common room and wait, then would they be angry with him for not stopping the girl when they got there? If he decided not to go straight to Gryffindor Tower, but somewhere else instead, would they be upset that he didn't confront them immediately?
They're going to be upset with you, no matter what you do, he told himself, and instead of making his way up to the main staircase, he turned and went toward the side of the Great Hall and made his way down a little- known corridor. Slowing is pace, Sirius observed the tapestries and paintings on the wall, all examining him with curiosity.
It was as he passed a tapestry depicting Barabas the Barmy's attempt to train trolls for the ballet hen it hit him. He was not wearing the invisibility cloak. If Filch were to come walking down the corridor right now, he would be done for. Panicking, Sirius turned and passed the tapestry a second time, thinking that he'd better get back to the common room, and fast. As soon as this thought crossed his mind, however, he realized that it was a dim one. Risking making his way back to the common that night unnoticed meant risking not only getting himself into trouble, but his friends as well. He turned a third time and passed a door that was once a tapestry as he retreated further along the dark hallway. Wait. A door? Sirius stopped in his tracks. He was sure that that door, that large mahogany door, had once been a tapestry of trolls beating a wizard to a pulp. Yet there it stood, about 10ft by 4ft, huge, heavy looking and clear as day. Shrugging, he tentatively reached for the handle and turned the knob. He shut the door behind him and heard a soft, satisfying click as it locked. It took Sirius a moment to believe what he was seeing. Laid out before him was a small bedroom chamber with high ceilings and a gigantic moonlit stained glass window that hung beautifully over the canopy bed. A dim light was emanating from the corner where a crackling fire was burning, warming the room and making him drowsy. He looked at the full moon outside the window. Feeling oddly bold, Sirius walked over to the bed and sat on it. It was covered in pillows and down blankets. Sitting on the mahogany bedside table next to him was a mug of warm cocoa. Without any second thoughts or hesitations, Sirius took the mug and drained it greedily. He lay back and felt all his worries slip his mind as he crawled under the blankets and fell instantly into a comatose, dreamless sleep.

Sirius awoke the following morning feeling more carefree and refreshed then he ever had in his life. Reluctantly, Sirius got up, cast a last look at the room, and went back up to Gryffindor Tower.
The short amount of time that Sirius had spent in the bedroom seemed to have given him an amazingly cleared head. He felt that now, even though he had no idea what to say to them, that he could probably talk to James, Remus and Peter rationally.
When he reached the portrait of a snoozing fat woman in a silk pink dress, Sirius said clearly to her:

"Salazar Slytherin smells like a wet dog,"

The portrait jerked out of her nap and said to Sirius, "Password?"

"I've just given it top you," responded Sirius impatiently. "Salazar Slytherin smells like a wet dog."

"Correct," said the fat lady, and as Sirius made for the portrait hole, she added, "Not going to Hogsmeade this weekend, I suppose?"

Sirius's stomach leapt into his throat.

"Hogsmeade?" Said Sirius blankly, his mouth very dry.

"Well, it's the first Hogsmeade weekend, and all of the students have left already," she said matter-of-factly.

Sirius said nothing, but dashed clumsily through the cramped portal and ran to a corner near a window with four slightly squashy chairs and a small table, all sitting directly under a tapestry of a unicorn.
Sirius ran and disemboweled James's usual chair rather carelessly, looking for a small wooden box. When he found it, he couldn't get it open.

"Shite," said Sirius quietly to himself. "Remus has the key." He looked out around the empty common room, brushing his black hair out of his eyes. He pulled out his wand. "Alohamora," he whispered. The spell did nothing. Thanks to Remus, the box would not open without a key. He thought for a moment, then remembered the extra-handy knife he kept locked up in his trunk.
Tucking the box carefully under his arm, Sirius rearranged the cushions on James's chair haphazardly before dashing straight to the trunk at the foot of his bed. Ripping things out and throwing them across the room, he finally found his all-purpose pocketknife. He clicked the small button on its handle that instantly caused a small pin to pop out of it. Sirius caught it, used it to open the box, and retrieved the Marauders map. Looking around one last time, he took the invisibility cloak under James's pillow, tapped his wand on the parchment and whispered:

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

Sirius left the common and found his destination without too much deliberation: the statue of the one-eyed witch. Slightly giddy, he tapped the witch's hump lightly and said, "Dissendium." The hump opened wide, and Sirius hopped in. he slid quickly down the slide and landed on cold, damp earth. He lit his wand and the light from its tip revealed a long, earthy and familiar passageway. He raised the map, tapped it again and said, "Mischief managed!" It went blank. He rolled it up and placed it carefully in his robes pocket. About fifteen tedious minutes later, Sirius reached the long stairway, made his way up them, and found the trapdoor. Once inside the Honeydukes cellar, he looked around cautiously. Finding the lace empty, he climbed the stairs and ended up in the crowded candy shop. He made his way through the crowd, out the door and onto the street.
Feeling slightly odd, especially because of the fact that he had no money with him and was wearing the same set of robes he had had on two days before, Sirius let the memories of the previous night wash over him as he combed the cobbled streets for signs of his friends. He needed to speak with them; not only about the troubling memories of the past night but also the good ones: Their first trip to the Shrieking Shack with Remus had been unforgettable. Surely they would have to repeat the tradition every full moon form now on, thought Sirius with a smirk. He couldn't wait until next month.
It was then that he remembered: they couldn't possibly continue journeying to the Shrieking Shack. Not while that girl was still around, anyway. Sirius's smirk turned to a sour expression as he turned into a pub called The Three Broomsticks. Sure enough, his three friends were sitting in a slightly less populated corner of the room; heads together and whispering urgently.
When he approached the edge of the table, James scooted over and said:

"Sit down, mate."

All three of them were staring at him as if he had come back from the dead.

"What?" Said Sirius thickly, after a period where no one spoke, but merely stared openly at him.

"Well," answered Remus. "First of all, where were you?"

"Yeah, I'd thought you'd been killed or something," said Peter.

James gave him an exasperated look that Peter didn't see.

Sirius let out a short and empty bark-like laugh before launching into an explanation about the mysterious room from the night before. He told them where it was and how he'd found it, its presence so conspicuous that it had seemed as though it had been created on the spot for his own personal use.

"Huh," said James, when Sirius had finished.

"That's sorta freaky," said Peter quietly.

"Well, yeah- "began Sirius, but Lupin broke him off.

"Where was the room again, did you say?"

"Right where that old tapestry of Barabas the Barmy being slugged is hung, on the ground floor."

"Would you mind taking us there tonight?"

Sirius laughed awkwardly. "UH, no, I suppose not. Why?"

"Well, it just seems that it might prove useful," said Lupin, shrugging.

"Okay."

"Hey, we need to add it to our map!" Said James enthusiastically.

"That's exactly what I was thinking,'" said Lupin.

There was a pause in which James, Sirius and Lupin watched Peter create a nauseating concoction with his butterbeer and various other edible items to his iron mug, completely unaware that his friends were watching him with utmost disgust. When Sirius finally tore his eyes away from this gruesome sight, he turned to James and asked:

"Why aren't you all furious with me? I thought I had really made you angry, running off like that; and letting that... that girl get away after seeing us, you know..." he trailed off and made sure no one was listening in.

"Well, we were really, really mad at first- "

"-Haha, yeah, James got really huffy-"

"I did not, Peter!"

"-You did, you were kicking anything you could get at-"

Lupin interrupted and spoke over them.

"BUT, we decided that even if we had been able to stop her running off, it wouldn't have done a bit of good, since she had already seen everything."

"That's where our real problem is represented, you see," said James, who had forgotten about Peter now that they had moved on to more pressing problems.

"We don't know what to do abut that girl," sighed Remus.

"Oh, I know exactly what to do with her..." James made a gesture of slitting a throat. Peter laughed.

"We can't hurt her!" Said Sirius and Remus together.

"Why not?" Asked Peter stupidly.

Sirius opened his mouth but said nothing.

"Because," said Lupin calmly, sparing Sirius the need to speak. "She didn't do anything wrong. She was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time. And besides- we don't even know if she will tell anyone, anyway."

"Oh, come on, she's a snobbish little bat! She's already bitten off Sirius's head for saying hello to her, so she obviously doesn't like us. She's got a good enough motive to run off and tattle on us to the Headmaster!"

"She won't," said Sirius.

"We have to do something about it, anyway, otherwise we'll never be able to go with Remus to the Shrieking Shack again! We'll need to at least talk to her; though I don't even know if she's even humane enough to carry on a polite conversation. I thin she may be the world's biggest-" James stopped mid-sentence and looked up at the corner of the table. There stood the girl- amber eyes flashing in James's direction.

"The world's biggest what?" she asked coolly, a smirk playing on her impish face.

James opened his mouth, but she interrupted, saying:

"Don't worry, that was a rhetorical question. I really don't care to know what you were about to say."

A/N sorry, another cliffhanger, I know, but it just seemed to work so well... Don't worry! I'll try to post chapter six within the next two days. TTFN...