Someone To Understand

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the plot and any OCs.

An Anti-Sheep Cheese Muufin, here is an update just for you!

Sienna did not reappear in the Ravenclaw tower until the early hours of the next morning, wearing the same clothes as the night before and looking decidedly crumpled, though happy, and although she insisted on waking up Crystal to tell her how wonderful Sirius was, she point blank refused to say what exactly had happened, much to Crystal's concern. Crystal fervently hoped that her friend had not done anything stupid last night.

Still in considerable pain Crystal began to prepare for the day listening with concern to the unusually chirpy Sienna.

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This pattern of Sienna going on dates with Sirius and returning in the early hours of the morning continued for a couple of weeks, along with Crystal's, far less enjoyable pattern, of beatings from her brother and his friends every time the Marauders pranked one of them, and considering that Marius was friends with Snape this was quite often. Crystal was furious with the Marauders for what they were doing to her, but to be fair to them, they honestly didn't know that they were the cause of her pain, or even that she was in pain, as, she was so practised at hiding it from people

Sienna herself was on cloud 9, she was completely in love with Sirius, and convinced he felt the same, Crystal had a sinking feeling that she knew why this was, Sienna firmly believed that she Sirius were meant to be together and failed to notice his interest in her waning.

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Sirius himself had been having a great time with Sienna at first, she was pretty and fun and easily satisfied, truthfully he knew no more about her after six dates than he had done after the first date, but he was not particularly bothered, she was, after all, a girl and not a friend and he really had no interest in getting to know her. However after about two weeks of dating, he was bored and felt that the time was right to move on.

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Remus was concerned, he had warned Sirius to treat Sienna kindly, she was, after all, a very nice girl, if a little naive, and it was he Remus who would still be forced to deal with her after their break up, as they were both prefects and would still see each other every week at the meetings, and he did not want to have to see her depressed, or worse still angry at him. However there was nothing Remus could do to prevent Sirius breaking up with her, he would just have to hope that Sienna took it well.

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Meanwhile Rose Parker was ecstatic, the Ravenclaw girl had lasted even less long than she had expected and Sirius would soon be free again so she could continue her strategic pursuit of him. She couldn't wait for the break up!

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It was Monday morning just before breakfast, exactly two weeks after he had first asked her out that Sirius dumped Sienna. He had hoped that she would take it well, it wasn't as though either of them had been in love, it was just a bit of fun, but even after he had explained this to her, she had still taken it badly, and had in fact burst into tears and rushed back to her dormitory. He shook his head in exasperation, he would never understand why girls reacted the way they did, after all, he couldn't imagine himself getting that worked up about a break up, there were, he realised much more important things in the world than girls, and growing up in the family he did he had learnt that from an early age.

At this present moment in time Sirius was becoming evermore concerned about the actions of that muggle hating psycho, Lord Voldemort, and his Death Eaters, or more precisely, his family's involvement with them, he strongly suspected that his cousin Bellatrix and her husband had joined them and felt that it was only a matter of time before his cousin Narcissa and his brother Regulus did the same. He was disgusted by all of them and the ideals they upheld but he was trapped with them, at least until he came of age.

By his family Sirius was ridiculed and abused, but he could do nothing to prevent it, he couldn't leave, he had no where to go and no money, and he couldn't tell his friends, not even James, they just wouldn't understand. He was completely trapped, at least for now, and he longed for a way out, for someone to understand what it was like to be part of the evil Black family, but set apart from them by being put in Gryffindor, but this, he felt sure, would never happen.

Sirius was, actually, pleased that he had been sorted into Gryffindor, but still, the beating he had got for this particular indiscretion had not been good, he cringed just thinking about it. Also his Gryffindor courage often got him into trouble, not letting him back down from his family when he knew he should, if only to save his own skin. However, Sirius was determined that no-one should know about his past, or his present problems, so he put on the front of being a happy go lucky rascal, it was, after all, better to be laughed at than pitied. Pity was one thing he couldn't stand.

It was with these, more morbid than usual thoughts, that Sirius Black entered the Great Hall for breakfast and promptly sat down at the Gryffindor table.

Sirius had been helping himself to breakfast for about ten minutes when suddenly he saw a black blur rushing towards. SLAP!

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There was moment of stunned silence at the Gryffindor table. Sirius Black, quite possibly Hogwarts coolest guy and notorious womaniser, had just been slapped by some unknown Ravenclaw, for no apparent reason. No-one knew what to think, what on earth had just happened? They didn't have to wait long to find out...

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When Crystal had seen Sienna go off with Sirius before breakfast, she had a feeling that something bad was going to happen, so she had followed at a discreet distance, close enough to be able to comfort her friend quickly if what she suspected was going to happen did happen. She was not disappointed. After talking with Sirius for barely five minutes Sienna had burst into tears and run off towards Ravenclaw Tower, and Crystal had had to run to keep up with her.

Once within Ravenclaw Tower Crystal had confronted Sienna and found out that not only had Sirius slept with her and then dumped her, he had also effectively broken her poor heart. Sienna was practically hysterical, and in no condition to go to class so Crystal comforted her as best she could, wiping away her tears, tucking her into bed and calling Sirius all manner of unpleasant names in an effort to soothe her.

However Crystal's outward appearance of calm was merely a screen to prevent her friend from seeing the bubbling anger building up, beneath the surface, towards that arrogant prick Sirius Black, he was going to pay for hurting her friend so badly! Didn't he know what a lovely person Sienna was, how could be do this to her?

It was with these furious thoughts running through her head that Crystal stormed out of Ravenclaw Tower to the Great Hall and towards her hapless quarry Sirius Black. She did not remember thinking about slapping Sirius, it simply seemed like the right thing to do given the circumstances, so she did, she had not intended to make a scene in the Great Hall, she usually avoided it at all costs, realising the dangers of doing so, but today she was too mad to care, she had to make Sirius realise that what he had done to Sienna was wrong.

Therefore, as, soon as she slapped Sirius Crystal began a tirade of abuse against him. "What the hell do you think you are playing at treating Sienna like that?", she began bitingly, her porcelain skin flushed with anger, "No wait I know, the 'Great' Sirius Black doesn't give a damn about the feelings of lesser mortals.", she stated bitterly, looking at Sirius, as though he were a cock roach, or some other such unsavoury creature, "He just does whatever the hell he wants no matter how much it hurts anyone else,", she paused to take a breath before continuing her furious rant, "do you have any idea how much she's hurting right now you prick?!" , she screeched before reaching out to try and slap him again.

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If anyone had entered the Great Hall after Crystal's tirade, for a moment they would have been able to hear a pin drop, the hall was so silent, as it seemed that everyone had stopped to watch the unfolding scene, with apparent interest. It was, after all, not every day that Sirius Black, school ladies man, actually found himself on the receiving end of abuse from the opposite sex.

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This last comment, however, seemed to have woken Sirius from out of his stupor, and he reacted in time to stand up and grab Crystal's wrist before her hand came in contact with his cheek again, it was still stinging from the last time she had slapped him!

"What the hell are you doing!", screeched Sirius at Crystal, still holding on firmly to her wrist, and seemingly oblivious to the eyes of half of the people in the Great Hall on him.

"What do you think I'm doing?" Crystal spat back angrily, trying unsuccessfully to wrench her wrist out of Sirius' grip, "I'm standing up for my friend, who you just used and dumped without taking into account her feelings, she's a human being Sirius,", she stressed patiently, as though explaining something to a small child, and throwing him a pitying look, "you can't just treat her like she doesn't matter!", she finished dramatically.

Sirius was stunned, no-one had ever stood up to him like that before, and here was this girl who he had never even talked to before, ranting at him and actually succeeding in making him feel guilty about how he had treated Sienna, a feat even Moony had failed to do before. He didn't know what to do, but he couldn't just let this incredible girl leave thinking that he was the biggest prick on earth, so when she continued to try and wrench her delicate wrist out of his grip, he held on harder twisting his hand further around her wrist, to make sure that she couldn't escape. He was shocked when at his actions a tear streaked down her porcelain cheek and a grimace of pain escaped her soft red lips, she was clearly in pain, but surely he had not been gripping her wrist that hard?

Feeling a complete sadist Sirius quickly dropped Crystal's wrist and watched in shock as she wiped the tear off her cheek, and, if possible, now looked even more angry at him than before for bringing attention to the fact that she was in pain, throwing one last withering look at him the girl stalked off nursing her clearly injured wrist and leaving a, once again, stunned Sirius in her wake.

It took Sirius a whole minute to realise that he was still standing, staring after her, with practically the whole school staring at him, and sit down again, but he was still in shock, what the hell had just happened? And how had that that strange girl, Crystal he remembered her name was, had managed to get under his skin so successfully when no-one else ever could? Why had she been in pain? And, most importantly, how was it that even when she had looked at him with pity, he had not been angry but instead felt instinctively that she understood, so it was alright for her to look at him like that?

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"Who the fuck was that?" exclaimed James with awe, as Sirius returned to his seat, unconsciously voicing the thoughts of practically everyone in the Great Hall. He had never seen anyone successfully treat Sirius like that before and could not quite believe his eyes when that girl had slapped him. "Well?", he questioned Sirius, waving a hand in front of his face, he was shocked to see that his friend had not been listening to a word that he had said, but was instead still staring at the spot where the girl had disappeared from the Hall.

It was instead Remus who answered James' question "That was Crystal Maycomb, Sienna's best friend," he prompted "Remember?", he said referring to their conversation two weeks ago.

"Oh, yeah!", muttered James with dawning comprehension, "But I thought you said she was really shy!", he muttered incredulous at the actions of this supposedly 'shy' girl, who had just humiliated his best friend in front of the entire hall!

"I thought she was!", defended Remus sheepishly.

"She sure seemed shy!", laughed Peter sarcastically at last seeming to get over the shock of the encounter. The three Marauders promptly burst out laughing at their friend's misfortune in pissing Crystal off, failing to notice the approach of several people behind them...

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Meanwhile Lily Evans and her friends were also discussing the encounter, and were also incredulous at the unknown girl's front at publicly attacking Sirius.

"Its about bloody time that someone stood up to him!", Lily announced vehemently, before realising a problem with this logic, "Although, it should have been Sienna standing up to him...", she trailed off looking pensive, two of her friends, Maya and Louise nodded their violent agreement about her assessment of the situation, but the other girl, Rose was clearly not listening and sat biting her lip.

"What the hell just happened here?", Rose thought frantically, "And why is Sirius still staring after her!", she inwardly screeched. Sienna had been no real competition, but this unknown girl was clearly going to upset her careful plans to capture Sirius, if his expression was anything to go by, "What was am I supposed to do now?!", she thought nervously chewing her lip.

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Suddenly a shadow formed across the Gryffindor table and the three laughing Marauders promptly stopped and looked up, along with the still shell shocked Sirius, to see the four people that they liked least in the world glaring at them.

"Having a good breakfast brother?", began Regulus Black chirpily.

"Bugger off Regulus!", exclaimed Sirius loudly, he really wasn't in the mood to deal with his idiotic, Slytherin, younger brother now, nor did he particularly want to get into a fight with him and his friends, so he was not about to waste time on pleasantries, or even thinly veiled insults.

Fortunately this view appeared to be shared by one of Regulus' companions, a boy his own age, who was standing at the side of the group with Sirius' favourite punch bag, Severus Snape...

The boy had long black hair, reaching past his chin, chiselled aristocratic features and familiar cold blue eyes, he was wearing a no nonsense expression, and his whole countenance told you not to mess with him, this was Marius Maycomb, a boy he had been enemies with, along with his twin sister Violet, and Snape, since practically the first day of Hogwarts. He was a pure blood, like Sirius, but unlike Sirius he followed the rules set out by his family, and this made them instant enemies.

Looking Sirius straight in the eye he boldly announced "You had better stay away from my sister Black or there will be hell to pay!", with that said he silently turned around and stalked off with a sneering Violet and Snape seconding his opinion before also turning and following in his wake. This left only Regulus, and one last girl, whom Sirius recognised as being Marius' younger sister Abigail, staring at Sirius with a satisfied smirk crossing their faces, before they too linked hands and left.

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Crystal meanwhile was still fuming. She had been marching angrily through the corridors for ten minutes, hoping to calm herself down somewhat before lessons started, and it wasn't working.

After her little scene in the Great Hall she was now even more angry with Sirius than she had been to start with! She would surely be punished severely by Marius for the incident, even if she had humiliated Sirius, which would surely please him, she had done it to defend her 'blood traitor' friend. But not only this was she worried about, Sirius had also managed, by refusing to let go of her wrist, still injured from the last beating, to expose to the entire school her weakness, and if there was one thing that her family had taught her, it was never to show weakness to anybody.

Even if the students, who were undoubtedly watching the scene with interest, had not noticed her reaction to Sirius gripping her wrist, she felt sure that one of the teachers would have, and that could only lead to questions that she couldn't afford to answer.

Merlin she hated Sirius Black!

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