Someone To Understand

Disclaimer: Sadly I own nothing except any OCs, so please don't sue!

BANG!

An explosion rocked the great hall, as four Gryffindors students let out a great whoop of laughter. Unsurprisingly it had come from the far side of the great hall, the Slytherin table to be more precise, and had seemed to cause all the occupants of the table to spontaneously grow feathers before quickly malting and returning to normal. After a moment of stunned silence the entire hall burst out laughing, apart from one girl, Crystal Maycomb at the Ravenclaw table knew better.

Her ocean blue eyes glittering with anger, she was inwardly seething. The prank had been amusing, that she would admit but the consequences of it were sure to be unpleasant. Her older brother Marius, older sister Violet and younger sister Abigail were in Slytherin and therefore some of the victims of the prank, and her brother at least was sure to blame her for it. Merlin she hated the Marauders!

Glaring at the Marauders she thought bitterly about the confrontation with Marius and her sisters, which was now sure to happen later today. She had been hoping to put off her next family argument for at least a few days after the traditional, before the train journey, 'You brought shame on the family name by allowing yourself to be sorted into Ravenclaw with the mudbloods and blood traitors' speech from her parents.

She sighed bitterly. Nothing ever seemed to go her way, she had known since she was a child that her ideals were different from her parent's, she didn't believe in the purity of wizard's blood like her parents did, though she had too much sense to actually say it to them.

She had been influenced greatly by her late grandmother, Desralda McKenna, a powerful witch and a good woman who had been forced by her aristocratic pure blood family to marry Crystal's tyrannical late grandfather Julianus Maycomb. Desralda had toed the line of social propriety whilst Julianus was alive, rightly fearing his wrath for any digressions, but she too did not hold with any of the traditional pureblood ideas. When her husband was gone she wasted no time in imparting her wisdom to the most open minded of their grandchildren, Crystal.

Crystal's grandmother was the only member of her family who Crystal actually trusted and loosing her at age nine had been a huge blow, she would now have to hold out against the prejudice of her family alone. She now, unfortunately, knew how trapped and isolated Desralda must have felt all those years ago.

Crystal's only hope was to keep a low profile. She was after all the middle daughter of her family, not even a boy, she could easily slip under their radar, pass through school quietly and then, as soon as she came of age leave to do what she wanted for once. She thought it would be simple. She was wrong.

It had all started when the stupid sorting hat had decided to put her in Ravenclaw, effectively highlighting, to her entire psychotic family, the fact that she was different, the only Maycomb to EVER not be sorted into Slytherin. She had pleaded with the hat to reconsider, longing for the anonymity that being put in Slytherin would provide her with, and cringing with terror when it began to suggest that she be sorted into Gryffindor. She might have wanted to stand up to her family but she didn't have a death wish, and being sorted into Gryffindor would have been like showing a red flag to a bull, she wouldn't have survived, it was as simple as that. Eventually she had acquiesced to the hat's suggestion to put her in Ravenclaw, it was after all, better to be put in Ravenclaw than Gryffindor. But, ever since, her family had seen her as the 'bad egg' of the family and determined to change her into something more fitting to what they thought she should be. Lately they had even been pressuring her to join their little crusade to rid the world of muggle borns and assert their rights as pure bloods, she was disgusted with the idea but couldn't say as much.

To her family Crystal was just another pawn to be played to their advantage, and she had betrayed them by simply being whom she was. Marius, particularly, was never going to let her forget that, and would use any excuse to torture her, often literally. No, she was not looking forward to running into him later. He was going to be in a foul mood after the public humiliation, and she, not the Marauders, would be the one to pay for it. Not that she would ever let anyone know what was happening, still, she could blame the Marauders…

"Brilliant wasn't it," enthused her best friend Sienna Morgan arriving energetically at the Ravenclaw table, five minutes late as usual and completely misunderstanding the intense, slightly glazed look that Crystal was shooting at the Marauders, "those Marauders get funnier every year, not to mention fitter, Merlin Sirius is soo hot!" She gushed excitedly, caramel eyes twinkling as she flicked her shoulder length auburn hair over her shoulders and stared flirtatiously over at Sirius.

"If you're going to spend all breakfast drooling over Sirius I'll go now and spend some time in the library before class…" Crystal began irritated with the way this first breakfast of the year was starting. They had been back at Hogwarts for less that twenty four hours and Sienna was already talking about Sirius! She had dearly missed her friend over the summer, not really being able to see her, because her parents viewed Sienna's family as being 'muggle lovers'. She had had to rely solely on letters for communication but she was not about to listen to another one of Sienna's rambles about how wonderful Sirius Black was, not after what he had just cost her…

"No!" Sienna interrupted violently, "You spend enough time in the library as it is, you are not going to turn into even more of a bookworm than you already are, not if I have anything to do with it!"

Seemingly satisfied with her little rant Sienna promptly sat down and began to help herself to breakfast, still unconsciously eying Sirius, who was now sitting over at the Gryffindor table with the other Marauders.

Crystal smiled inwardly and continued to read the large tome she had been poring over before the Marauders notorious start of term prank. She was secretly pleased with her friend's violent reaction to her suggestion, glad for once that someone cared about what she was doing. She was not by nature a bookworm, but experience had taught her to always be prepared. The best way to do this was to read, to know more than her enemy did, to outsmart them, which often proved difficult when dealing with cunning Slytherins. She sighed quietly this year was not going to be easy…

XXXX

Oblivious to the stares being directed their way from the Ravenclaw table, not to mention the many other gazes fixed on them from around the hall, the four 6th year boys known as the Marauders were discussing the success of their latest start of term prank.

"You know I think we should have pulled something during Dumbledore's start of term speech, can you imagine the looks on the teacher's faces if we had…." Began Sirius Black, the Marauder known more commonly to his friends as Padfoot, as he casually brushed his elegant black hair out of his stormy grey eyes whilst his smaller watery eyed companion, Peter Pettigrew, more commonly known to the Marauders as Wormtail, nodded in fervent agreement.

"We've been through this before guys," Remus Lupin, the Marauder more commonly known as Moony patiently explained, shooting an exasperated look at his messy black haired companion James Potter, more commonly known to the Marauders as Prongs, (who was presently not listening to a word his friends were saying, but was instead watching intently a girl from their year with dark red hair and shocking emerald green eyes), "we don't have time to set anything up between arriving at the school and the welcome speech it just wouldn't work." He explained wearily raking a hand through his long sandy brown hair.

"I know." Interrupted Sirius seemingly irritated by his inability to find a brilliant way round this particular problem, a sullen look passing across his devilishly handsome aristocratic features before quickly switching to a charming roguish smile, as he finished excitedly, "But just imagine if we could." At the thought he sighed in anticipation, "We'd go down in Hogwarts history for sure, right Prongs?" He said excitedly jabbing James in the ribs.

XXX

James had been sitting in silent contemplation of Lily Evans, the spectacular red head who seemed, through no fault of his own, to hate his guts when he was suddenly jarred out of reverie by a sharp jab in the ribs courtesy of his so called friend Sirius Black, the resident "heart throb" of Hogwarts.

"James," began his best friend angrily, it was never a good sign when Sirius called him James, "Have you been listening to a word I said or have you just been staring at Evans for the last ten minutes?" He questioned angrily, "If you like her so much just ask her out already, she's just another girl, and its not like you haven't dated before, Merlin half the school wants to get into your pants so just ask her out already!" Finished Sirius dramatically throwing his arms into the air for emphasis.

"Yeah!" Piped up Wormtail squeakily, "You can get any girl in school, just ask her out!"

Just as James was starting to get convinced, (and rightly so!) of his school stud status, Remus Lupin, Moony the prefect, friend to Lily Evans and most mature of the Marauders logically stated that James had been trying, unsuccessfully to ask her out since the middle of 5th year, and after months of rejections he was still no closer to winning her than he had been at the start. After all, she was convinced that he was an arrogant prick and told him as much whenever she got the chance, with this simple, but true, statement James' bubble burst, he was never going to get Lily!

"Oh cheer up Prongs!" Sirius comforted cheerfully, "Evans'll realise what a stud you are eventually and until then I think a demonstration is in order, to help you brush up on the basics." Started Sirius pompously, "And who better to demonstrate the fine art of wooing a fair maiden than me, Sirius Alexander Black?"

"Knock it off Padfoot." Began Moony testily, smacking Sirius upside the head, "Prongs does not need your kind of 'help' to get Evans, he needs to prove to her that he's changed…" Explained Remus.

"But he hasn't," interrupted Peter, "he's still the same old Prongs!" He finished proudly patting James on the back.

"That's exactly the problem!" Huffed Remus inaudibly, slumping into his chair, whilst the other three continued to argue about what James should do about Evans.

Finally after about three minutes of more 'suggestions' for James from Peter and Sirius about Evans Sirius took control of the conversation again. "I'm going to show you how its done James," stated Sirius confidently, "all I need is to find a girl…"

"One you haven't already been out with," scoffed Remus rejoining the conversation. Sirius scowled, after all Remus had a point, after five years in Hogwarts he had gone through a large section of the female population. There weren't a lot of girls that he hadn't gone out with, this of course did not include Slytherins (He did have some standards!), or those that he and the other Marauders arrogantly deemed 'not pretty enough' to bother with. Irritated and determined to prove Moony wrong he frantically began to scan the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables for girls in the right age bracket, not even bothering to glance at the Gryffindor table knowing full well that he had already slept with half the girls in the appropriate years there.

XXXX

It was at this point that Crystal stopped reading and turned to look at Sienna again. She had stopped eating and was again staring longingly at the Gryffindor table, or more precisely Sirius Black, who, Crystal couldn't help but notice seemed to be in the middle of a heated debate with Remus Lupin...

Remus Lupin was the only one of the Marauders Crystal could stomach. He was quieter than his friends, sweeter and more mature, hence being made a prefect. She had only talked to him once or twice, being in the year bellow and not a prefect but he had always been polite to her and considerate of her feelings, something she wasn't used to at home. She strongly preferred him to that arrogant berk James Potter, that stupid runt Peter Pettigrew or that seductive bastard Sirius Black.

During her time at Hogwarts Crystal had seen Sirius use and then dump dozens of girls. It amazed her that anyone would actually willingly go out with such a player, everyone knew his reputation, was it just that they were naive enough to believe that, with them he 'really cared' and wouldn't dare to use them? Why an intelligent girl like Sienna would ever want to go out with him she would never know, she was a Ravenclaw for Merlin's sake, not some stupid little Hufflepuff!

Crystal herself would never consider going out with Sirius. He was an arrogant show off only out for one thing, and truthfully she didn't date, it wasn't worth the drama of what her family would do to her if she went out with someone they didn't approve of. It wasn't that she didn't get offers for dates, she did, with her striking ocean blue eyes, long curly ebony hair, porcelain skin and refined aristocratic features she was strikingly beautiful, if, because of her determination to lay low, a little shy.

Suddenly hearing a lull in conversation from the Gryffindor side of the Great Hall Crystal looked at Sirius again, only to see him grinning cockily at something. She turned her head to question Sienna and was shocked to find her blushing and gazing back at Sirius, a smile stupidly crossing her pretty face…