Renegade

Disclaimer: Sad to say, I don't own Sirius Black. If I did, I would NOT have killed off the closest thing Harry had to a father because poor Harry's been through enough bullshit already in his life! In this chapter, I reference the book The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I wasn't sure if I needed to mention that here, but decided it was best to cover my bases.

A/N: The beginning part here is just to get your mind working, possibly burning with questions about Raven. Enjoy the chapter anyways!

Liveley

Chapter 3 – The Count

Although he hadn't seen Raven in two days, he was still thinking about her. Sirius mostly slept, something he'd not done well in a long time. He'd lie in bed thinking about what he said to her. 'Maybe I shouldn't have told her all that,' he thought. 'I thought maybe she'd understand.' He smiled as he thought of her singing along to "Back In Black." 'We have a lot in common, I think. Other than the fact that I'm an escaped convict, and she's not. Well, and I'm a wizard, and she's not. And what's up with her age? I swear, she doesn't look twenty-five. Does she want me to think she's older because she likes me? Or maybe she's hiding something, too. She said most people come here to hide from things. What if she meant herself?'

Raven had been the same way. She went over to Jordan's and tried to pretend Sirius wasn't next door. But she couldn't do it. 'There's something about him I just can't understand. If he were on the run, why would he tell me all that stuff? ...Had to tell somebody, I guess. But still, he trusted me with it, and now I'm leaving him all alone in it. I just don't know what to say. I know he doesn't want to tell me anything more. I don't want to ask the wrong questions. Besides, if I ask him questions, he'll think he can ask me questions. Of course, I know what to say, but I feel bad lying to him now.'

She glanced at the clock on the TV and walked into the kitchen to take her medicine. She hesitated after closing the refrigerator back up, but slipped on her shoes and stepped out the front door of her house and let it bang back shut. Bounding up to the door and pressing his nose against the screen, Rio gave a loud bark.

Raven turned around and stepped back in the house. "Oh, alright, you can come." Rio jumped up on the wall next to the door and pulled down his leash that was hanging on a hook. Raven smiled and clipped the leash to his collar, kissing the top of his head, fondly. She followed Rio onto Sirius' front porch and knocked. Her eyes widened as she peered through the screen and saw Sirius coming towards her without his shirt on. She took a deep breath as he opened the door and smiled at her.

"Miss me?"

Raven couldn't help smiling back. "Not really. Rio dragged me over here. Care to go for a walk with us?"

"Sure." He stepped out the door and started walking down the steps.

"Um..."

He turned back around, "Did you say something?"

"Aren't you going to put something on first?" she asked, holding back the blush that was threatening to creep up on her cheeks.

Sirius looked down at himself. "Oh shit." He went back into the house and came out a few seconds later with a t-shirt on.

'Honestly, how could you not know that you're not wearing a shirt?' thought Raven to herself. "Isn't Padfoot coming?"

Sirius' eyes widened, but then he shook his head quickly. "Uh...no, he's…out somewhere."

Raven rolled her eyes as they started to walk along the beach. "If I let Rio out for more than a half hour by himself, he gets lost."

Sirius laughed. "Well, Padfoot's very independent."

Raven nodded. "So...where are we?"

"Um, what?"

"Are we friends?"

"You tell me."

"Well...if we set up a kind of 'no questions' rule between us, can we be friends?" asked Raven.

"Does that mean you have something to hide, too?"

Raven stopped walking and turned sideways to look at him, raising her eyebrows and giving him a questioning stare. "Was that a question?"

Sirius opened his mouth and then closed it again. "...No. I'll rephrase: I think you're hiding something from me, too."

"What am I hiding then?"

"I…have no idea."

"Good." She smiled at him.

"Raven is your real name, though, right?"

Raven laughed. "Yes."

"Good, I like Raven."

"Well thanks, Sirius."

Sirius nodded in response. "No questions? I find it hard not to ask questions. How can you not ask questions?"

"Well, no questions about...the past?" explained Raven.

"Oh, I see. But how are we going to get to know each other if we can't ask any questions?"

"Well..." Raven thought for a minute, "there are plenty of questions we can ask each other."

"Like...what's your favorite AC/DC song of all time?" Sirius turned sideways to look at Raven as they walked along.

Raven smiled. "'Night Prowler'."

"Really?"

"It cracks me up. What's yours?"

"Big Balls," said Sirius, almost too quickly.

Raven groaned and rolled her eyes.

"I'm kidding. Definitely 'Back In Black'."

"How come?"

Sirius shrugged. "It's got my name in it."

Raven froze. "Black?"

Sirius realized he'd just told her his last name. "God dammit!"

Raven laughed. "Is this you not telling me anything about yourself? Because you suck at it."

"I think I need to work on my mystique," said Sirius monotonously, shaking his head at himself.

"Maybe just a little bit."

"So...ring any bells?" asked Sirius, cringing a bit at the thought of her suddenly screaming at him, 'Sirius Black! The escaped convict, Sirius Black!' He knew very well they'd even given his picture to the Muggle policemen when he first escaped because they thought he was so dangerous.

"Black? Sirius Black..." Raven looked upward, as though manually searching through her brain for something. "Nope. Sorry."

Sirius furrowed his brows as he watched her. "No? You've got to be shitting me!"

Raven shook her head. "I shit you not. I don't get a paper and I don't even have TV channels. I just watch movies. Once in awhile I'll get a letter from Josh telling me basic things, but it's been about five years since I've heard anything big."

"But still, how can you not know anything that's happened recently in the world?"

"I don't want to know. I have my reasons."

"Is that your way of telling me that it's from your past and you're not going to say anything?"

"Yup," Raven smiled innocently. "So, Sirius Black...you're not like a rock star or anything, are you?"

Sirius smiled widely. "Maybe..." he thought about it for a minute. "Nah, nothing like that."

"Too bad."

"So, what's your last name?"

Raven shook her head. "No, no, no. No one forced it out of you. You told me of your own free will. I don't have to tell you mine just because you let yours slip."

"All right then, I guess we can't be friends," tempted Sirius.

Raven rose her eyebrows. "Oh, so that's how it's going to be, huh? Fine, if that's the way you want it." She quickened her pace and began to walk away from him. Rio remained, almost glaring up at Sirius, and he hurried after her, taking her arm and spinning her to face him.

"Tell me your middle name and we'll call it even," he said. Raven surveyed him skeptically. "I'll even tell you my middle name: Lee."

Raven tried not to smile. "Sirius Lee? Seriously?"

"Afraid so," said Sirius.

"I like it." She smiled, kicked off her sandals and took a few steps onto the wet sand. A wave crashed onto the beach and the water ran across her feet.

Sirius was already barefoot and hurried out after her. "And where do you think you're going? You haven't told me your middle name yet. Come back here. Raven..."

"Leia."

"Raven Leia... It just doesn't sound right without your last name."

"So make one up," she said, continuing to walk along the wet sand.

"Okay," responded Sirius without hesitation, "White."

"White?" asked Raven, looking at Sirius incredulously.

"Yeah, I'm Black, you can be White."

"Are you saying we're opposites?"

"No. Fine, what's your favorite color?"

Raven laughed. "You know, not all people's last name's are colors."

"You're joking!" screeched Sirius in mock surprise.

"Well, I guess I don't really know about everyone else, but mine isn't."

"Oh now we're getting somewhere!" said Sirius slyly, turning in front of her, walking backwards, and looking into her eyes. "Guessing your last name will be easy now that I know it's not a color."

"Just don't call me White. It's too much like Clue."

"Clue?"

"Mrs. White, ya know, from the board game, Clue."

"Never heard of it," said Sirius, absently. "Wait, are you married?"

Raven snorted. "Me? Oh no."

"Well what's that supposed to mean? You could be married, I don't know."

"No, I'm not married. Who could I possibly be married to around here?"

"Good point. I guess you just haven't found Mr. White yet," teased Sirius, playing on 'Mr. Right'.

Raven giggled. "Mr. Right, or Mr. White?"

"Well, in your case it would be Mr. White."

Her giggle turned into a snicker. "You do know that the woman changes her name to the man's last name when she gets married, right?"

"I wouldn't know," shrugged Sirius. "I've never been married."

She started to laugh again. "Are you always this funny, Sirius Black?"

"Not lately with all the shit that's happened to me. Maybe it's just you."

Raven smiled at him.

Friends?" Sirius held out his hand to her for the second time.

She shook it. "Friends."

Over the next week, Sirius spent most of his time at Raven's. They watched movies, listened to music, read books, and just talked. Strangely enough to Raven, Sirius had never seen any of the movies she had and knew next to nothing about music, other than he liked AC/DC.

Raven came out of the bathroom with her hair dripping wet and a towel around her body to find Sirius bent over her library of books, picking out yet another one for her to read to him.

"Ahem."

Sirius did three things at once: he jumped from hearing her voice, spun around quickly, and, after seeing that Raven was wet and wearing only a towel, dropped the fat book onto the floor.

Raven snickered. "Caught ya. Trying to steal one of my favorite books?"

"Uh..." Sirius's mind had gone blank. He shook his head and tried to concentrate on the book at his feet. "Er...no, sorry. Just thought we could start another one tonight."

Raven snorted. "Meaning you want me to read another book to you."

"Naturally," said Sirius as he bent to pick it up off the floor.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm beginning to wonder whether you can read."

"I can! Look here," he held up the book and ran his finger under each word he read. "The…Count…of Monte…Crisco—"

Raven smirked. "Cristo."

"Whatever," he continued reading, "by Alexandre…Dumbass?"

She giggled and then pronounced the name 'Dumas' with a French accent. "Doo-mah."

"Right. Is it any good, then?"

"Like I said, one of my favorites."

"Okay, then you won't mind reading it to me." He smiled slightly and chanced another look at her. "You got a hot date or something?"

Raven giggled. "Are you implying that I normally don't take a shower unless I want to impress a guy?"

"Well no!"

"You're the one who barged into my house without an invitation! What, was I supposed to know you'd be standing in the middle of my living room when I got out of the shower?

Sirius laughed and relaxed a little bit. She had a way of making any situation, however awkward or embarrassing, a comfortable one. "You're an impossible woman to argue with, did you know that?"

Raven nodded her head and smiled innocently. "I'm going to go get dressed now. Why don't you make us some dinner?"

"You forget, I almost burned down your kitchen two nights ago," he said as she disappeared into her bedroom. He hadn't had much practice cooking in the last thirteen years, not to mention without the use of his wand.

"I didn't forget, I was simply reminding you," she said, raising her voice to carry through her bedroom door.

"Yeah, well just for the record you don't have to take a shower to impress me," he called. "You already do," he added quietly to himself as he picked up the book from the floor, set it on the coffee table, and then stared at her television. "How do you turn this thing on again?"

"You worry me sometimes," she said from right behind him.

Sirius didn't turn around. "You're not naked, are you?"

"You think I'm that easy?" She reached in front of him and switched on the TV.

"I don't know. Would you rather watch Girls Gone Wild? I've got that over at my house," teased Sirius.

Raven laughed and hit him playfully across the chest. "I may be easy, but I'm not sleazy!"

Sirius let out one sharp, "Ha!... No, I know you aren't. I was kidding, I don't really have that at my house..."

"I'm glad."

"...I lent it to my friend, Remus," he continued, joking.

"All right, I didn't need to know that. That was an over-share."

"I'm kidding, okay? Can you read this?" He held up The Count of Monte Cristo again. "What's it about?"

Raven smiled. "Um, a guy gets sent to prison by his best friend and then he escapes and takes his revenge."

Sirius's eyes widened in shock. "Are you serious?"

"I thought you were Sirius," Raven responded.

Sirius made a face at her and rolled his eyes. "Sounds like a goodie." He lay across the sofa and crossed his legs, putting his arms behind his head and taking up the entire couch. "You can start reading now." He threw the book carelessly back onto the coffee table and thought to himself, 'I'll take notes.'

"Typical male," Raven muttered under her breath as she picked up the book.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Raven," Sirius said as he sat up and patted the couch space next to him. "Come sit next to Papa."

Raven's mouth dropped open as she promptly seized a pillow and threw it in Sirius' face. "You get weirder every day I'm with you, you know that?" She sat next to him.

Sirius put his arm around her waist and slid her down next to him. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

Raven was surprised both of his strength and of being this close to him. She shivered slightly as she looked into his eyes. 'If we kissed, would it ruin everything?' she thought.

But of course at that very moment, Rio jumped up, placed his two front paws in Sirius's lap and the latter groaned and choked out, "Hi, Rio."

"River! Where are your manners?" exclaimed Raven, trying not to laugh at Sirius's pained expression.

Rio barked loudly, licked Sirius's face, and then returned his front paws to the floor.

Raven smirked. "I think he's in love with you."

"Yeah, you always love the ones you hurt," Sirius spoke through gritted teeth.

"I think it's the other way around. But yeah…" Raven let out a hushed laugh and then clapped her hand to her mouth and swallowed. "Where does it hurt, Sirius?"

Sirius looked at her and the ends of his mouth curled upwards. "Use your imagination."

She giggled freely. "Well, I could start reading, would that make you feel better?"

"Not completely, but it's a start."

As Raven began to read with record speed and Rio curled himself up at Sirius's feet, Sirius furrowed his brows. "Wait a second, this is really confusing. How many times have you read this?"

"Oh, you know, two, or three, or…" she shrugged," …forty."

"I see. So…"

"Okay, I'll explain what's going on so far." Raven took a deep breath. "There's this guy Edmond Dantes, he's in love with Mercedes, and his best friend is Fernand Mondego. They met Napoleon Bonaparte who gave Edmond a letter to give to someone once they got back to Marseilles. Because Edmond can't read, he doesn't know that it's a letter to one of Napoleon's agents there, and therefore considered treason. Fernand reads the letter while Edmond's asleep and turns him in. That's the part we're at right now."

"But I thought Fernand was Edmond's best friend," argued Sirius.

Raven nodded. "That's what Edmond thought, too."

Sirius's insides burned as he thought of James and Lily and compared their betrayer, and his betrayer, to Fernand Mondego.

Raven continued reading and soon Sirius was completely engrossed in it. He kept overreacting to everything that happened because it so closely resembled what had happened to him, and Raven, unknowingly, was laughing at him.

"You're really into this, aren't you?" she said, with an amused smirk on her face.

"This is outrageous! That guy just wants Edmond's girlfriend!"

"Ya think?" said Raven, sarcastically, trying to hold in her laughter. "Don't worry, he'll get his revenge."

"How long is he in prison for?"

"Thirteen years in the Chateau D'if."

"Thirteen?" Sirius was amazed. He'd been in for twelve before he escaped Azkaban. "And he escapes?"

"Sirius, do you want me to read the book or just tell you the ending?"

He smiled as Raven went to make some popcorn.

"Hey, there's a cat out there!"

Sirius got up from the sofa and stood behind her, looking out the door. It ran through the yard again and Raven put her hand on the doorknob. Sirius brought his hand up to her shoulder and pulled her back. "Let me get it."

He went outside slowly and into the bushes after the cat. He came out with it in his arms, it desperately trying to get away. He held it in his hands and gently stroked its head. "I can feel her ribs. I think she might be sick," he said as he came back into the house.

Raven resorted to her baby talk. "Aw, hi, baby. Hi, sweetie, are you lost?" She gently took the cat from Sirius and cradled it into her arm, petting it gently with her fingers. "I don't have any cat food. Get a dish of milk, will you?"

Sirius hopped right to it and after the cat had her fill of milk, she was very friendly and laid between the two of them on the couch. Sirius urged Raven to take up the book again and tried to contain his frustration this time so he didn't scare the cat.

"She's a sweetie," he said as he stroked the top of her head and she purred.

"She is. Wonder where she came from."

"Well, she's ours now," said Sirius, simply.

"Ours?"

"Yes, ours. We can't just leave her. She can come live with me."

"Does Padfoot get along with cats?"

"Padfoot loves kitties, he'll be happy to have another animal around."

"What does he need another one for?" teased Raven.

"Hey! I'm no animal!" 'Lies,' he thought to himself.

A/N: If you've never heard "Big Balls" by AC/DC, download it or something, it's hilarious. And if you haven't read or seen the movie, The Count of Monte Cristo and Sirius is your favorite HP character, you should definitely at least check out the movie. First of all, Sirius's situation really closely resembles The Count's and secondly, Jim Caviezel, who played The Count, was one of my top picks to play Sirius in PoA. And by the way, I meant no offense when Sirius read Dumas's name as "Dumbass." He's one of my favorite author's. Sirius was just trying to make Raven laugh. The next chapter is rather eventful and I can't wait to post it, so be sure to leave me a review so I know you want me to! Luv, Liveley.