A/N: Well I didn't get ten reviews for that last chapter, but seven is great (of course I adore any review I get). But can't reneg on my deal though, so no daily updates, though if I get three more for that chapter I'll be happy to do the daily updates. I had intended to do good sized chapters each day as well. Oh well, it looks like most of you prefer long chapters less frequently, then shorter ones sooner. I shall endeavour to keep everyone pleased. :)

This particular chapter isn't super long, but that's simply because the next one is like 4000 words, didn't want to combine the two.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed. I really am fueled by reviews. After every review I get I feel like writing. Soooooo... everyone... keep that in mind. The more reviews I get, then longer and more frequent the chapters will be. Not that I'm hinting at anything... well... maybe a little. :)

Oh and to those who wondered... really don't worry, Aine shall start teaching soon. Only like one more chapter after this and then the students arrive. Sorry if it has seemed long but when I started to write this I was determined not to just skip to the major plot points. I wanted to make sure the story got developed, and that the characters were as well. So while it may be a long story, I do hope it is worth it. Please though, tell me if you think it's getting off track... :)

Chapter 26

I was on my way to see Sirius. It was now after dinner, and here I was on my way to see the man against all my own personal ideas. I could be the greater human being, and go to apologize for my having gotten angry at him earlier even though all he had been doing was trying to see if I was okay.

But quite frankly I'm not that great of a person, and I still was stubbornly annoyed with Sirius for calling the outright murder of muggles a prank. Right, so maybe he hadn't been calling it that himself, but stating what other people thought. And so therefore my entire reason for being angry with him was moot...

I had been trying to convince myself to stay annoyed with him, but in the end the logical side of my brain was telling me that there was no reason to be annoyed. In fact I had just convinced myself out of the annoyance.

All that aside though, that wasn't why I was making a trip to Sirius's room. No this trip could entirely be blamed on one egotistical Potions master. It could be blamed entirely on him and his inability to keep his mouth shut about certain things...

"Severus..."

"Professor Snape."

"I just told you something that may end up with me being transfigured into a rat, and you're still going on about that? It was a secret! You weren't supposed to know! Do you get that?"

"First, I don't think Sirius could transfigure a bag into a paper hat. Second, is it really counted a secret if I knew before you told me?"

"You suspected... that's all. Now shut up about the protocol of what I need to call you. You can NOT tell Sirius that you know. He doesn't have to know... and if he does he'll not be happy about it."

I was tapping my fingers along the arm of the chair I sat in. The Professor was still standing by the fireplace, his fingers steepled in front of his face looking thoughtful about what I said. Perhaps he would actually show a little compassion to his former rival.

"You want me to not tell him that I know, because it might hurt his feelings?" An eyebrow rose in my direction. "There doesn't appear to be any real reason to keep him in the dark about this."

My fingers dug into the wood, glaring at the man standing nonchalant in front of me. Of course he didn't see a problem telling Sirius, causing a blow up of epic proportions. After all Sirius being angry with him was nothing new. The problem was that I was going to have the Gryffindor man angry with me, and the headache was something I wasn't looking forward to. So I was thinking a bit selfishly, but there was legitimate reasons.

"I don't want him to know because he hates you. He doesn't trust you. He thinks that you are working for Lord Voldemort." And the mention of the name, the normally implacable potions master winced. "He finds out that you know, he'll assume that you shall inform your master. Not true I know." I raised my hand, cutting him off before he even had a chance to say anything. "The point though is that I need him to concentrate on finding that horcrux."

"I will let him know that I know." A small smirk appeared on his face. "For no other reason then it's the right thing to do."

I snorted.

"I could tell everyone you tried to attack me."

"You already used that one up getting me to help you with your involuntary desire to stay in Black's company."

And now I was on my way to do a little damage control. It was either let Professor Snape tell, or do it myself. Neither choice was really a viable option in my opinion, but I had been boxed into a corner by that slimy git.

Letting Severus do the breaking would just result in more problems. After all he would put it in the worst way possible, and likely he wouldn't do anything to calm Sirius about his supposed allegiance to the dark lord wizard. Instead he would mock, taunt, tease, and aggravate Sirius. Now if I told Sirius... Well he would still be pissed off, incredibly so. But I could at least make him see that this could be helpful in the long run. After all Severus was a Slytherin, and Regulus had been a Slytherin. So where Sirius couldn't go...

Not that I expected Severus to offer up much help...

So now I had to go and give myself a canine sized headache.

Sirius opened his door looking ready for bed, though thankfully fully clothed for bed. There was no way I was going to trust myself in his room if he was going to be less then fully clothed. Rather tempting I have to say just having the bed nearby. I have to say though that given some thought on the matter, I would have assumed that the man would have gone to bed sans clothing... Or perhaps that was my own furtive imagination.

The look he gave me as he opened the door though was less then pleased, rather annoyed really.

"Have you come to yell at me like a banshee again?"

My eye started to twitch. I was no banshee, nor did I yell like one. But I couldn't get into a fight with him over that again. I only had enough patience for one argument this night, and that one was the lesser of my two worries. A banshee though? Really... My skin was not green tinged, nor was I in any way skeletal... could lose a few pounds actually, so I really wasn't a banshee in any appearance. And if he was suggesting my voice had any banshee like quality... Right, have to tell him about Severus, not focus on the screechlike qualities of my voice.

"Look I'm really sorry about that. I understand..." I swallowed my urge to stubbornly cling to what I thought earlier. "I understand you didn't mean anything malicious... So I'm sorry for yelling at you."

He had moved further into the room, which was done up in all red and gold colours, obviously a tribute to his favourite house, his own house. Not answering for a moment, he dropped into a chair by the fireplace, a large overstuffed red armchair.

"What do you want?"

At my surprised, and frankly outraged look he smirked slightly.

"I haven't known you very long, only a week really but in that time I have realized your deadly stubborn. You only apologize after you have been apologized to. Not to mention you looked like you had swallowed a skrewt when you said that."

My nose wrinkled, and my brows knit together as I huffed as his rather apt conclusion. So he wasn't that thick headed, despite some very compelling evidence to that case. I muttered softly, mainly about annoying thick headed canines, and walked over to sit on the couch in front of the fire.

"Sirius... I have something to tell you. It's not easy to tell you but I'm going to have to." Going to have to tell him, or risk having a full blown fight break out between two old rivals.

Whenever anyone starts a conversation with that line, things just go downhill from there. Sirius looked immediately concerned though and moved from the armchair to sit on the couch next to me, peering intensely forward at me.

"Is everything all right?" He asked earnestly.

"Why couldn't you have been like that before? Instead of treating the murders as unimportant because they were muggles." There was a degree of compassion in the silver eyes. I hadn't been paying attention before, had he had that look before?

A groan came past his lips, and he leaned back into the couch, rolling his eyes towards heaven.

"I believe we've been over this already. I didn't mean that I thought it was unimportant because they were muggles, but that other people would think that. Why are you taking this all so personally?"

" Personally? I AM a muggle, how much more personal could it possibly be? And apparently I'm the only one who cares at all about muggles." I paused, thinking that sounded a bit silly since after all I was a muggle, and therefore I should care about myself. That wasn't all that was getting me worked up though. It was what Severus had told me earlier, that the second attack had been a break in at NYU. It was possible that I was what they had been after, and so the conclusion would be that whoever had died, had died because of me. I wasn't angry, I was feeling guilty.

The logical side of my brain broke that down quickly enough, saying the only one at fault for a person's death is the person who causes said death. Not to mention if I was going to blame myself for their deaths, I could go steps back and blame other people. I could blame Sirius for being dead, or Harry for wanting me to bring him back. There were plenty of people to blame, but it doesn't help at all placing blame on people. Well except blaming Voldemort,blaming him was after all a given. The bad guy of the story is always the center of the blame.

"Okay, okay. Nevermind." I shook my head, digging a hand into my own brown locks. I was starting to feel a little stressed. What I wouldn't give to go back to New York and teach a class of future stock brokers and corporate CEOs. Hell at this point in time I was ready to go back home and teach a class of preschoolers who knew only to poop in their diapers, and how to eat crayons. "I'm tired, stressed, and frightened okay? You might be used to fights with evil wizards who want to kill you, but I'm not all right?"

Without saying anything Sirius had slipped his hand over mine, squeezing it gently. Warmth flowed from his hand into my own. I looked up from my intense perusal of the crimson carpet to find his face a mere few inches from my own, his eyes silver and flowing an intensity that I had yet to deal with before. My face grew hot, and the old shivers went down my spine. Being this close to this particular man was a fantasy come to life, but not a good idea.

"Sirius..." I said his name in an attempt to stop where this was going, to stop what I perhaps did want to happen, but which was inevitably going to lead to a whole lot of trouble.

Moving my lips though really hadn't been a good idea, because now his eyes were watching them. I was frozen still as he moved in even closer, time seeming to have frozen along with me. He paused only a few inches from my face, I could feel his hot breath on my lips. There was no way that I could allow Sirius Black to kiss me, but my brain and my body were at odds once again. I knew it was a bad idea, I knew it was going to cause trouble but my body didn't recognize those arguments. Instead all it saw was the way his hair was loose and falling into his eyes, how those eyes were shining silver, eager and passionate. All my body saw was his lips, all I could feel was the hot breath, all I could smell was Sirius's own distint scent of cinnamon and fragrant wood.Damned if I could stop this thoughl. And even more damning was how I realized I was leaning into him, ready to accept his kiss.

Fate though sometimes has it's useful moments. Even if it was such a cliched use of fate as a knock on the door...