Hello! To answer a question from Jessica, asking my age: I feel uncomfortable posting my age on the internet, (it's not that I don't trust my wonderful readers, but there are some creepy people out in cyberspace) but I will say, I'm in my early teens. Very early teens. I hope that's not too evident... I was nervous about writing the romance, I read a bunch, but writing it is another thing... Here's the chapter!

Chapter Nine

Ellie and I spent the remainder of the night having a movie fest, eating junk food, and talking. We didn't try and get any sleep; both of us knew it'd be nearly impossible.

But around five or six in the morning we both ended up falling asleep on the floor (both of us had drunk a little of the fire whiskey that Ellie had conjured. Not much, but enough for us to forget our plight, as everything became ridiculously funny)

We woke up at about eleven thirty, our heads aching from the fire whiskey and a bad nights sleep.

"You want to take a bath first? Or shall I?" Ellie asked blearily.

"You can." I heard a click as Ellie closed the bathroom door, and the sound of water running. I groaned and put my head back down on my pillow, determined to think about absolutely nothing until the absolute last moment possible.

"Your turn." Ellie came out looking a bit more put together after her bath.

I stood up and walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. After turning the water as hot as it went, and emptying the remainder of the bubble bath, I soaked for a good forty-five minutes. I emerged from the bathroom with my hair in a braid, wrapped in a large fluffy white towel, and quickly threw on faded blue jeans, and a dark blue shirt, not wanting Ellie to have to face the others alone downstairs.

I heard voices coming from the kitchen and took a deep breath, bracing myself for whatever was to come.

"So, um, I don't know what's going on between you two—" Remus started to say, obviously uncomfortable with the way Cassie and Ellie were glaring at each other.

Or rather, Ellie was glaring at Cassie, while Cassie looked back rather confused –she was smart enough to know that Ellie was upset at her, but angry that Ellie just didn't spit whatever was bothering her out-

"Nothing is going on between us!" Cassie snapped uncharacteristically

At this Ellie coughed pointedly. Remus opened his mouth to say something else but wisely decided it was best not to say anything at the moment. Seeing me in the doorway he tried to change subjects.

"Hello Lily! Did you have a good nights sleep?" he asked chipperly.

"No. In fact I didn't get to sleep until 6 am!" I said with very obvious fake cheerfulness, annoyed at how he could be so chipper when life sucked.

"Oh. Yeah." Remus seemed to remember my fight with James. I dully how much about it he knew. I hoped not much. "Well, um, I have some stuff I have to do. Bye!" Remus exited hastily.

I got myself a bowl of cereal and sat down at the table next to Ellie. We ate in silence for a couple minutes, before Cassie squirming said "Ellie-" but before she had a chance to say whatever she was going to say, Sirius and Maya came in through the kitchen door, Sirius laughing at something Maya had said. When Sirius saw Cassie his face lit up and he bounded energetically over to her kissing her soundly on the lips.

Ellie stood up. "You two make me sick." she said before stomping off bowl of cereal still in hand.

Cassie and Sirius stared after her before turning to me wordlessly, while Maya stared intently at the floor.

I ignored them both and put my empty bowl in the sink. "Good-bye." I said and left after Ellie.

Cassie Pov

"What is up with them two?" I wondered aloud to Sirius, after Ellie had stomped off with Lily at her heels.

"I don't know, babe. But I bet you that Maya knows something about it." Sirius looked slyly at Maya.

I turned to look at her and sure enough Maya had on her Guilty Face.

"I don't know anything!" Maya said defensively, crossing her arms.

"Don't give us that shit. We know when you're hiding something from us."

"And don't give us that I'm-so-innocent look! You can't fool us!" Sirius warned.

"Look" I said gently "you know, that we're going to find out anyway, and you also know that your life will be easier if you just tell us.

"My life won't be any easier if Ellie kills me." Maya muttered.

"Actually, your life would be significantly easier if Ellie killed you. Because then you'd be dead; and because you wouldn't have a life, it'd be no trouble at all to keep it." Sirius said helpfully.

Maya looked slightly confused at such logic. "I never would have pegged you as a philosopher."

"Not many people recognize my brilliance…" he shook his head sadly, and wrapped both arms around my waist. I leaned back into him happily and he kissed just below my ear.

Come on," I said seeing her stubborn look "Please?"

"Well… okay. To make a long story short, Ellie liked Sirius a whole lot, and when she found out about you and Sirius…." Maya trailed off. "She's extremely mad that you didn't tell her."

"I didn't know she liked him!" I protested.

"I know that, you know that, and she knows that, but she's hurt and… needs time to recover. Give her a couple of days. She'll come around." Maya gave me a pitying look and left the room, probably to give Sirius and me some alone time.

Suddenly all Ellie's past behavior made sense. I knew she was hurt but couldn't she just be happy for me? Finally, I had found a truly wonderful guy, who truly appreciated me.

Ellie was used to having tons of guys asking her out. Boys were attracted to her outgoing personality. No one looked at quiet studious Cassie and saw a person who liked to have fun just as much as any other person!

Sirius' voice cut through my thoughts. "I just want to tell you, I didn't think Ellie actually liked me. I'd never hurt her on purpose."

"I know" I turned around in his arms so I was facing him and gave him a light kiss before hugging him tightly. He hugged me back and we stood there for a couple of minutes just enjoying being with each other.

I thought back to how this all had started. I'd always had a teeny crush on Sirius but had never told anyone about it; after all, the chances of him liking me back were 1 in a 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

But the day before leaving on the Hogwarts Express back home, a stray mistletoe which had gotten locked in one of Hogwarts spare rooms from Christmas, had appeared over Sirius' and my heads and…. you can guess the rest. I hadn't told any of my friends, because I hadn't known what it meant myself. Were we dating? Were we "casually snogging"? What was everyone going to say?

This summer had been one of the happiest times in my life. And I was even happier now that Sirius said he wanted to "officially" date. Just thinking about Sirius made me deliriously happy

"C'mon. It's probably about time we checked in with the others. They'll be wondering where we are…" Sirius pulled away from me a little.

"Yeah." I sighed "I just hope that everything with be okay with Ellie. I couldn't stand it if I lost my best friend."

"You won't. Everything will be fine." Sirius comforted me as we walked out of the kitchen.

I hoped he was right.

Lily Pov

"Look, Sirius and Cassie-"

Ellie me cut off. "Don't speak their names! From now on we'll refer to them as Thing 1 and Thing 2."

"But who's who? Is Sirius Thing 1 and Cassie Thing 2? Or is Cassie Thing 1 and Sirius Thing 2?" I should have known better than to ask.

"Didn't I tell you not to speak their names? Sirius is Thing 1 and Cassie is Thing 2!" she growled after a moment.

"I'm on your side remember? Don't go yelling and being mad at me!"

"I'm not mad! Do I look mad? Who's mad! Why would I be mad!" Ellie screeched. "I am definitely not angry about anything that just happened downstairs!"

"Good." I said quietly. "Then stop shouting at me."

Ellie looked away briefly before meeting my eyes. "I'm sorry. That was wrong of me. I'm… upset."

"I know. And it's okay to be upset. Just don't take it out on the people who are trying to help you."

We spent the rest of the day much like the previous one: watching movies, blasting music, talking, and eating junk food. Ellie made it up to me by being mild-mannered the entire time.

It had grown dark, and we were finishing off the last of the Chinese food we had ordered in when there was a knock at our door. We had kept inside our room, only going out to get more food, and even then we were careful to avoid everybody.

"Who is it?" I called out.

"It's Maya. Come on out! It's time to stop sulking!" Maya said in a firm no-nonsense voice.

I sighed. There was no arguing with Maya when she was in this mood.

"We're coming," I said standing up and pulling Ellie up with me. I made my way over the blankets, pillows, and candy wrappers to the door, and opened it.

There stood Maya. She grabbed my hand, and then reached around me to grab Ellie's. When Ellie balked, Maya let go of her hand and grabbed Ellie's ear instead, pulling us down the stairs and into the living room. Lounging on the couch and chairs were Sirius, Cassie, Jon, Remus and James.

"It is time that you two" Maya pointed at Ellie and Cassie, with the hand that had been death-gripping mine "talked." She then took that hand and pulled Cassie to her feet, before shoving both Cassie and Ellie into the kitchen.

"There" Maya turned away satisfied. Seeing my curious glance she added "the room's locked on the outside. There's no way either of them are escaping." She sat down, taking Cassie's place beside Sirius. Maya patted the space beside her.

"Sit. We might have a while to wait."

About half an hour later –an awkward half hour for me, as I was intent on ignoring James, and he was intent on ignoring me- Ellie and Cassie emerged.

"Are you two alright?" asked Maya.

"Yes." Ellie answered quietly.

"Good then." Sirius stood up and cleared his throat a little self-consciously. "I'd like a word with you Ellie." Ignoring Cassie's look of horror, Ellie nodded and headed back into the kitchen. Jon gently steered Cassie into a chair and started talking too quietly to her for me to hear.

Ten minutes later Sirius and Ellie came out. Sirius looking more down hearted than usual, and Ellie looking plain exhausted.

She gave me a small smile. "We're fine too."

"So now, can Cassie, and Maya, please please sleep in your room again?" asked Remus. "I am so tired of having them sleep in the room next to us. Haven't they ever heard of not staying up 'til past midnight talking loudly? I swear, I got practically no sleep last night." He said shaking his head and diffusing the tension.

Cassie and Maya looked at Ellie and me for permission.

"Of course they can!" we said at the exact same time. All four of us grinned at each other.

So? Did you like it? What did you think of Cassie's Pov? I don't think I've done another person's Point Of View in this story before...

Thank you for all the fantastic reviews! I hope to get a bunch more!

Rachel