Sirius' Jewel

Chapter 5:

So, after I was sure that Sirius was most likely telling the truth I left it that. I really had no reason not to believe him, anyways. I mean, why would he lie to me? But there was still that feeling there that I was being too trusting. And whenever I got that feeling things never went good. I usually ignored it, but I should've known better by now.

It wouldn't have bothered me as much if Sirius had only failed to show up once or twice. But he never showed up whenever we planned to meet, not once. And I always confronted him about it afterwards when I found him. He gave me a different excuse every time. He was always able to shrug me off and I didn't like that.

"Okay, look," He said, as I opened my mouth to say something. It was a Thursday night and he hadn't showed up again. Surprise, surprise. "This weekend is a Hogsmeade weekend. We'll meet at three o'clock in the Three Broomsticks."

"Fine, but you better show up!" I snapped, glaring at him.

"Hey don't worry, babe, I won't let you down." He said, winking at me. His cockiness faded a little when my eyes flashed at him dangerously.

"Do not call me 'babe', you self-absorbed pig." I said in low voice, almost a hiss. "And don't try to hit on me again, Black, it just may be the last thing you do."

"Is that a threat?" He asked, trying to sound like his cocky, arrogant self. But I could detect some fear in his voice.

"Mr. Black," I said, putting my hands on his shoulders. He looked somewhat surprised at this. "You can bet your life that's a threat." I turned on my heel and went up to the dorm. I flopped on my bed and moaned.

"What's the matter with you?" Lily asked, looking over at me form her bed.

"I am going to kill Sirius Black one of these days!" I said, covering my face with my hands. "He is driving me up the wall!"

"Yeah, I came up here to hide from James." She said, sighing. "I think he's going to propose any day now."

"Yeah, well, at least he's helping you with your project. Black has not showed up once for our study sessions." I replied, looking at her. He looked back me with this weird expression on her face. "What?"

"What's with your eyes?" She asked, looking more closely at them. "They look bright red."

"Oh, that." I said, with a wave of my hand. "I'm a changer."

"What's that?" She asked, curiously.

"Well, it's sorta like a metamorphagus, only it's your eye color that changes." I explained. "And no, not all morphies are changers and not all changers are morphies."

"That's cool. Can you change them at will." She asked, her own eyes lighting up.

"Sure. What color do you want me to change them to?" I replied, with a smile.

"Um, how 'bout sky blue." She said and laughed when I did it.

"The only downside is that they let on whatever emotion it is I'm feeling." I said. "That is if you know which colors correspond with which emotions." I added, with a sly smile.

"Well, are you going to tell me?" She asked, coming over and sitting on my bed. I shook my head.

"I'm going to make you guess." I said, laughing. She gave me dirty looked, but laughed too.

"Alright then, let's get started." She said, brightly. I turned my eyes to fiery red. "Um, that's got to be anger." I nodded and changed them to bright blue. "Um…er…sadness?" I nodded again and changed them icy gray. "That looks like coldness or dislike." I changed them to bright yellow. "Well, um, happiness?" I shook my head and I gave her a deer-in-the-headlights- look. "Oh, fear!" I changed them to bright pink. "That's embarrassment." I changed them to bright purple. "There's only one thing that can be- mischief!." I changed them to bright green. "And that's gotta be happiness!"

"Well, now you know how to tell what I'm feeling," I said, smiling at her. "Unless, I control it of course. Which I do most of the time. But there are times when my emotions are in the extremes that it's just totally and one hundred percent uncontrollable."

"Really? People usually just read the emotions that are displayed clearly on my face." Lily said, and we both laughed. It felt good to be able to tell someone the secrets I had.

Saturday I walked into the Three Broomsticks at two forty-five. I slid into a booth after getting some Butterbeer. Damn, that stuff is good. I pulled out my Transfiguration stuff and attempted to do some of it. But I was ready for Sirius to take some the workload so I pulled out the book I was currently reading- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy- and picked up where I'd left off.

When three o'clock came and went and Sirius hadn't shown up, I wasn't at all shocked. I waited until three thirty before packing up my stuff and getting ready to leave. I had given up an entire afternoon of fun with Lily so that I could be stood up by him. I hoped, for his sake, that something life threatening was the reason he hadn't showed up. I was just about to stand up when something caught my attention in the next booth.

"Sirius you are such an incredible kisser!" I heard a high pitched voice say, breathlessly. I looked over the booth just as he answered.

"I try." He replied, kissing her lightly. Ew, did he really just say that? "I should be going, though, I have to meet my partner."

"Don't leave!" The girl, who was some ditzy blonde Ravenclaw, said pouting. (A/N: no offense to all the blondes out there!) "Make up some excuse like you have been. She's been buying it so far hasn't she?"

"Yeah, he has. She doesn't know that I've been ditching her to spend time with you." He said, laughing. "I have her eating out the palm of my hand. It's just that she's so trusting, it's so easy to get her to believe anything."

"How pathetic." The girl said, laughing too. I turned away, having heard enough and left. I was so furious that I was more than sure that my eyes were glowing a dangerous bright red. Sirius was a dead man when I got my hands on him.

I walked back to Hogwarts, but instead of going inside the castle I went down to the lake. I needed to vent my anger and I did so by making whirlpools in the water for a while. I felt myself calm down some more. Then I went up to the common room, where I found Lily.

"Hey Lils, what's goin' on?" I asked smiling at her.

"Jules, where have you been?" She exclaimed, jumping up from her chair.

"Down by the lake, venting." I replied, taken aback. "Why?"

"Well, I saw Sirius come out of the Three Broomsticks with his flavor of the week and I over heard them talking about how he's going to keep on ditching you. And how he's going to make you do all the work." She said, quickly.

"WHAT?" I yelled felling the anger I'd just vented returning. "He's a dead man!"

Before Lily could say anything, the portrait hole opened and in came the Marauders laughing at something. As soon as I saw Sirius, I snapped. Completely and totally snapped. Controlling my temper is not always one of my strong points.

"I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" I screamed, hurtling myself at him. He didn't see me coming, so I was able to tackle him to the ground and straddle him so he couldn't get up. I didn't even bother with magic, I just started hitting as hard as I could. I succeeded in giving him a black eye, a fat lip, and a bloody nose, but because he was so strong I wasn't able to hurt as much as I wanted to.

"What the hell is your problem?" He asked, managing to roll me over so that he was straddling me now. He pinned my arms to the ground so that I couldn't him and I couldn't move my legs. Blood was pouring from his nose and onto my clothes.

"Get off me you bastard!" I yelled at him, trying to get out his grip. But he was too strong for me.

"I asked you what your fucking problem is." He said, not paying attention to what I said.

"Now, I have a problem?" I spat at him, still struggling.

"I would say that trying to kill me would be a problem." He replied, as though I were crazy.

"I don't appreciate being ditched and left with all the work to do while you go off and have fun!" I said, angrily.

"What?" He said, looking surprised.

"I'm so trusting that I'll believe anything you say. I'm eating out of the palm of your hand." I said, mockingly. "Isn't that what you said, Sirius?"

"You heard me?" He asked, his clear blue-gray eyes widening.

"Yes, I heard you! I was getting ready to leave the Three Broomsticks and I heard your ditzy bimbo of a girlfriend talking." I said, looking him in the eye. He held my gaze for a few seconds, before looking away.

"Look, I'll let you up if you promise not to kill me." He said, looking back at me. I glared at him for minute before nodding. He stood up and then offered me his hand, which surprised me a little. He helped me to my feet and then took a couple of steps backwards as though he thought I would start beating him up again.

"I'm sorry you got stuck as my partner, and I can't say that I was exactly thrilled that you were mine." I was no longer shouting, but the anger was still evident in my voice. "But that doesn't mean you can just ditch me and dump all the work on me, so that you can go make out with whatever girl you're with that week. 'Cause you're grade depends on this project too."

"You couldn't just say that?" He asked after a moment. "You had to beat me up?"

"Sirius! The world doesn't revolve around you!" I exclaimed, my voice beginning to rise. "You need to realize that!"

"And you need to realize that I don't care!" He said. "You need to stop being such a bitch!" He added, anger in his voice.

"Well, at least I'm not a worthless waste of talent!" I said, loudly. I knew as soon as I said it I'd gone too far. Sirius stiffened and, if looks could kill, I'd be dead. He didn't yell at me though. Perhaps it would've been better if he had.

"I was wrong about you." He said, in a deadly, quiet voice. "You're not just a bitch. You're a naïve little girl who trusts everyone. Maybe if you weren't so trusting, things like this wouldn't happen to you. But you're so caught up in your own little world of joy and happiness that you can't even fathom the world's cruelty."

Naïve little girl that trusts everyone… he didn't know what had happened. I couldn't get mad at him for saying that- it was a fair assessment. But I felt my eyes change from the angry glowing red to a dead, lifeless gray. Sirius saw this, looking shocked and looking as though he regretted what he'd said.

"You know what Sirius? Let's just forget that I ever brought this up. I'll finish the project and you can give half the girls in Hogwarts hickeys. That's what you wanted from the beginning anyways, so this should make you happy." I said, tonelessly. And without waiting for his reply, I turned and walked out of the Common room. I needed to think; I needed a place where nobody could bother me. I went up to the Astronomy tower.

Everything that had happened within the past ten years came flooding back to me. I had come here to get away from all of this. Why did it always follow me wherever I went? The fact that I was an orphan was bad enough, but no it didn't stop there. My parents never wanted a child and so they never really loved me. When I was six, they just died and that was when all the trouble began. I had no one to protect me. I was alone. And then I was taken to an orphanage where I was shuffled around from home to home. I was moved across the country constantly, which was why it was hard for me to make friends Every time I would think this it, I can trust these people and every time something went wrong. When I moved to LA to start at Polk, I didn't even bother going with families. I just stayed at the orphanage. I knew that nobody would ever care about me, but I stupid enough to believe that somebody might. And then the summer before last I learned something that I was suppose to never know. I was a chosen one and as such I had my destiny planned out for me. I think that was the real reason I got transferred here, but the fact that I could start over was enough to push from my mind then. Now, I was feeling the emptiness and loneliness that I'd always felt. I guess there really was no escape from it. But I refused to cry about it. No, I would be strong like I always was. Besides, I hadn't cried since I was six, so I wasn't about to start now.