Someone To Understand

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

After breakfast, Sirius immediately left the dining room, and hurriedly began to think of places that he could use to hide from the rest of the guests, he did not want his mother, or anyone else, for that matter to find him and force him to spend the morning, either conversing about business or politics with the adults or 'playing' with the other children, both of which he felt would be a highly unpleasant experience. However he was not fast enough in his swift exit of the room, and was soon collared by his irritated looking mother...

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Crystal meanwhile, had just escaped from her, far from pleasant 'conversation' with her own mother, and having the same thoughts about the day's events, had promptly tried to escape the dining room without notice, she too failed...

"Well, hello there Crys." began a horribly familiar voice, "You wouldn't be trying to sneak away from us now would you?" hissed Abigail, in a seemingly sweet voice.

Turning to face her sister Crystal groaned, she had hoped to avoid a confrontation like this, for at least a few hours, "But at least," mused Crystal silently, "in such an open hall way they won't risk doing anything to me, the adults may agree with what they're doing, beating the rebelliousness out of me, but they won't appreciate seeing it first hand. Also they can't do magic outside of school, so there will be a limit to how much damage they can do without it.", she reasoned logically, hoping to give herself courage, by analysing the situation carefully.

Determined not to show her siblings that she was in any way afraid of them, Crystal looked up challengingly, her ocean blue eyes fierce, to see Marius looking back at her, his cold blue eyes narrowed with anger, glaring at her, and flanked by her equally angry looking sisters, Violet and Abigail, fortunately Regulus was no where to be seen, for which she was grateful, but still, the odds were not at all in her favour.

"Of course not Abbie, don't be silly.", scoffed Crystal, "Why would I try and sneak away from you guys?", questioned Crystal innocently, trying to keep the sarcasm in her voice to a minimum.

"Why don't you tell us Crys," started Marius dangerously, his eyes glittering with suppressed fury, as he began to walk towards her, causing her to, involuntarily, back herself into a wall, "Could it be that you've been screwing around with Sirius and were afraid of our reactions to this disgusting piece of news?" he asked her calmly.

Scolding herself for loosing her nerve, and allowing Marius to back her into a wall, effectively trapping her, and hiding her from view, Crystal brought her chin up proudly, and looked him straight in the eye, answering calmly, without a single tremor, that she didn't know what he was talking about.

"Liar!" hissed Violet nastily, "We saw you dancing with that disgusting blood traitor last night!", stepping out from behind Marius and glaring furiously at her little sister.

"And then there was that little display over breakfast..." began Marius suggestively, Violet and Abigail staring at him, clearly hearing this particular piece of news for the first time.

Abigail looked horrified, but also almost concerned, "Crystal," she began seriously, "you know that you can't have anything to do with Sirius, you know what he is! He may be a Black, but he's a blood traitor, a Gryffindor, and a mudblood lover, he can't be trusted, and if you're seen to sympathise with him the Dark Lord will tar both of you with the same brush!" she finished dramatically, a note of pleading in her would be calm voice.

"Don't bother Abbie", Marius interrupted, before Crystal had a chance to answer, "if beating it out of her doesn't work, what chance do you think you have, just talking to her? She won't listen, and the Dark Lord has no patience for fools."

"Then it's a good thing that I don't give a damn what he thinks then isn't it!" spat Crystal angrily, foolishly allowing her anger at the conversation, and being told what to do, to over ride her common sense. She was furious, but immediately realised her mistake, when Marius slammed the back of his hand hard across her face.

"Never speak badly of the Dark Lord Crystal!" spat Marius, shaking with fury at her words, and close to physically attacking her.

"Why?" spat back Crystal, past caring about what he was likely to do to her, for this latest outburst, already feeling her cheek begin to swell and throb with pain where he had hit her, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes that she knew she couldn't afford to shed, "Are you afraid of your master then Marius?" she asked innocently, shooting Marius a pitying look, that she knew she would pay for later.

"Don't talk about things that you don't understand!" shouted Marius angrily, loosing all semblance of control over his emotions and striking out at her again, knocking Crystal to the floor with the force of the blow.

To her intense surprise Crystal then saw Violet step in front of Marius preventing him from hitting her again. Violet then shot him a warning look, as if he had broken some unknown agreement, "This isn't what we came here to do!" she hissed at him angrily, before turning to her fallen younger sister, lowering herself to her eye level, and, looking intently into her eyes, saying, "You don't have to be on the outside you know", she paused for a second, as if carefully considering her next words and said quietly, almost kindly, "You could join us you know, just leave the blood traitors and muggle borns that you hang out with."

Frightened but resolute, Crystal shook her head softly at Violet's suggestion, and, looking into Violet's pale blue eyes, quietly answered, in a voice of steel "Never." , she was not going to be dictated to by her family, no matter what the cost...

Violet shook her head softly at this exclamation, and looked at Crystal, pity and disgust written all over her face, before standing back up beside Marius and Abigail. Marius himself looked positively livid at his sister's front, in refusing their generous offer, whilst Abigail just looked surprisingly pitying about something... "You don't believe that he loves you do you?", questioned Abigail incredulously, though there was an undertone of concern to her voice.

"Do I look like a complete fool?" Crystal snapped irritably at her younger sister, of course she didn't believe that, this was still Sirius Black that they were talking about, even if he was acting strangely, she was not about to become another notch on his bed post!

"Do you really want me to answer that?" retorted Marius dangerously, glaring at Crystal with barely concealed fury before turning and walking away, turning back one last time to exclaim, "Just don't cause any more shame to the Maycomb family name through your folly.", before continuing on his course, to where ever he was intending to go. Violet and Abigail both shot Crystal last looks of anger and exasperation, before sweeping after Marius out of the hallway.

Alone in the corridor, in a heap, backed into a wall, with her cheek swelling more with every passing second, Crystal was furious, but also confused. Both Abigail and Violet had actually shown some concern for her welfare, and she could not seem to figure out why, was it possible that they cared for her as a sister, at least a bit?

Confused and in pain, though determined to carry on regardless, Crystal gingerly picked herself up off the floor, wincing slightly, as she put weight on an ankle, that she had apparently twisted as she fell, this day was not going well, and some how she was going to have to find a way to deal with her injuries, without magic...

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Sirius meanwhile, found himself being dragged into a side room by his mother, once there he saw his father and Regulus already seated in the small parlour, and taking a seat himself, he wondered what the hell was going on.

Sirius did not have to wait long to find out, apparently, his domineering, ambitious mother had brought them here, to discuss how they should be behaving at the party. She was pleased that Regulus was ingratiating himself with Abigail, and the powerful Maycomb family, but she had no idea what to do with Sirius. She said that he too needed to find a suitable pure blood wife, he was after all, the older son, and finding a match for him would have to be the priority, as he was the heir, but him being, a 'Gryffindor' did not make things particularly easy for her, as no self respecting pure blood would want their daughter to marry a 'Gryffindor', even if he was a Black.

Unfortunately for Sirius, he also discovered that she had noticed him with Crystal last night, and did not like the idea of him associating with someone like Crystal, who's own family did not even trust her, the girl may have been a Maycomb she said, but she was not to be trusted.

Sirius soon found himself being punished, for what his father termed, a 'lapse in judgement', and subjected to a short bout of the Crutacius Curse, to 'bring him back to his senses'.

Sirius left the small side parlour some time later, limping slightly, Regulus' smirk as he was being tortured still burned into his consciousness, "Shouldn't brothers be close and look out for each other?" he wondered ironically, thinking of ways that he and the Marauders could prank the Slytherins as payback for this last humiliation, though of course he had no intention of telling the Marauders why he wanted to prank them, he knew that they would only over react ands make it worse, and that he would suffer for anything that they did at his parents' hands' later, no matter how good their intentions were. Moony and Prongs could be far too over protective sometimes and he knew that they would react badly if he told them.

Whilst under the curse, Sirius had been forcibly reminded why he had so much wanted to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas, even if he would get to see more of Crystal the way things were now, he doubted that the time they spent together, was enough to make the punishments they each faced worth it, though, once he had thought this, he remembered, how it had felt to hold Crystal in his arms, and couldn't help smiling to himself, despite the residual pain, "No," he thought to himself dreamily, "a single second in Crystal's company is worth any amount of pain... WAIT!" he snapped internally breaking his dreamlike state, "Where the fuck did that come from?!", though he knew exactly where that had come from, his heart.

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In pain Crystal had limped carefully to the library, a place she knew that none of the family were likely to trek to during the Christmas holidays, her favourite sanctuary, a place that she had used to think, held all of the answers to all of life's problems, if you could just find them...

She had learned a long time ago that even libraries did not contain the knowledge of how to deal with, and fix every problem, but it still brought her some comfort to see a place in the world where order existed and chaos did not reign. The rows of neat ordered books gave her strength and comfort, and on a more practical note, the many rows of books offered dozens of, relatively, safe hiding places, which, when she was a child she had often used to her advantage in the library of her own home, Maycomb Manor...

However now was not the time to get distracted by memories, she had a purpose in visiting the library, she was hoping that she might be able to find a book of healing potions that she might be able to brew for her injuries, despite having no where to brew such a potion, and no ingredients, she would have to cross that particular bridge if she came to it. She began to search through the huge collection, though she was having no luck, as most books in the Malfoy library seemed to be more concerned with causing people injuries, than healing them. She was so engrossed in her search that she didn't even notice Sirius coming up behind her...

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Sirius had decided as soon as he left the parlour with his parents in, that he was going to have to find somewhere unusual to hide, somewhere, where no-one would ever think to look for him. The answer to his problems had come to him like a bolt out of the blue, he could hide in the library, after all, who would ever think to look for Sirius Black, troublemaker extraordinaire in a library! It was the perfect hiding place!

However when he had arrived there Sirius had soon discovered that he was not alone in thinking the library to be a good hiding place, as Crystal seemed to have had the same idea, he smiled thinking about the first time that he had seen her, holding that huge, ancient looking tome at breakfast when he had asked Sienna out months ago, and what Moony had told him about meeting Crystal often in the library at Hogwarts , "She obviously has a thing for libraries!" he thought, trying desperately to stifle an extremely undignified giggle. Though at the same time he could not help letting his mind drift, and wondering, if he had seen Crystal before Sienna how differently things would have turned out, of course, he knew now that she would have said no to him asking her out without a second thought, but still, he couldn't help but wonder...

As Sirius silently approached her however, he noticed something wrong. Although Crystal's face was turned slightly away from him, as she hadn't noticed him yet, he could still see, that across her left cheek there was the beginnings of a nasty looking, dark purple bruise where someone, most likely Marius, had clearly hit her.

His blood boiling with fury, that anyone would dare to do something that violent to a creature like Crystal, Sirius reached out, and without thinking, grabbed her arm, and pulled her sharply towards him. Grabbing both of her arms and forcing her to look him straight in the eye Sirius demanded to know who had done this to her, though he knew perfectly well who it was, he was going to kill Marius for this!

Crystal froze in his arms at the expression on his face, she looked like a deer trapped in the head lights, her ocean blue eyes wide with fear at Sirius' outburst, this was like last time, only worse, because now that Sirius knew her better, this was personal, and he was not about to let Marius get away with this.

"It was him again, wasn't it?" said Sirius, his voice shaking with fury, his strong hands digging in tightly to her arms as he waited for an answer that he knew she would never give.

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Shocked, Crystal looked determinedly anywhere but at Sirius, trying desperately to ignore the stabbing pains in her arms where he was still holding her in his vice-like grip.

However, it seemed to Sirius, that apparently her silence was enough of an admission, and dropping his hands from her arms, he ran a hand angrily through his sleek black hair, and exclaimed passionately "I'll bloody swing for that bastard!"

At this extreme exclamation, Crystal seemed to regain control of her faculties, and, as he tried to storm out of the library, she ran after him, beating him to the doors, and standing in his way, effectively preventing him from leaving. She was furious with him, he was acting like she was his property, something weak he owned that needed his protection, and what exactly was he going to do to Marius anyway? Out numbered four to one he was not going to be able to do anything, he was only going to succeed in making life worse for both of them through his rash actions, she, therefore, had to stop him!

"And what exactly are you planning on doing?" Crystal spat angrily, "showing him the error of his ways, he won't listen Sirius!" , she tried to reason desperately.

"No, actually I was thinking more about socking him one, and then seeing how it goes from there." stated Sirius cockily, trying to mask his anger with confidence.

"Exactly what good do you think that will do Sirius?" screeched Crystal, exasperated and angry.

"Well, it'll make me feel better!" retorted Sirius furiously.

"And I suppose all that matters is how you feel?" questioned Crystal dangerously, her ocean blue eyes now glittering with fury as she surveyed the still fuming Sirius.

"No, of course not!", answered Sirius testily, running a hand through his silky black hair in exasperation, "I'm doing this for you..."

"Hah!" interrupted Crystal with a derisive laugh, "you are doing this to satisfy your own ego and you know it, so don't you dare try and use me as a fucking excuse you git!" said Crystal angrily, having to strongly curb her urge to slap him and wipe that self righteous look off his face.

Taking a deep breath Crystal began again, using Sirius' stunned silence as an opening, "Don't you see Sirius, if you attack Marius for me now, who do you think Marius will blame for it? And who do you think he'll take it out on later?" she explained carefully, before answering her own questions to hammer the points home, "Me! So you can't just storm off and confront him, because you might be protecting me now, but in the long term you will only put me and yourself in more danger, how do you honestly think that your parents would react to you beating up Marius?" she asked him, pleadingly looking into his stormy grey eyes, she knew she had won, his anger was evaporating, being replaced by realisation of the consequences of what he could easily have done.

"Easy," Sirius answered her calmly, "They'd beat the shit out of me, like they always do when I get into duels with Slytherins, only this time I'd be right to hand when they were most angry, since I'm not at Hogwarts, so it'd be ten times worse..." He trailed off, looking her in the eye, finally understanding what she had been trying to tell him.

"Do you get it now Sirius?", Crystal finished quietly, "You can't be my knight in shining armour, even if I wanted you to be, the price for both of us would be far too high, and you'd only make things worse. Don't you see, I could take revenge on Marius if I wanted, I'm skilled enough in a duel, but I'd end up paying for it later, because in the end I'm always out numbered, and for now at least I need them more than they need me." She finished quietly, begging him to understand, and praying not to break down in front of him again.

"I'm sorry," began Sirius quietly, his anger gone, as he, carefully, cupped Crystal's face with his hand, "I didn't think, I just wanted to protect you..."

"The thing is Sirius you never think, but it's not going to be you who has to deal with the consequences if you actually do do something stupid, you have friends at Hogwarts who can protect you, but I don't..." she said honestly, and then interrupting him before he could say what she knew he would, "and don't say that you'll protect me, even if I wanted you to, you couldn't possibly protect me 24 hours a day, and they're Slytherins, they're crafty, they'd get me eventually..." she finished dejectedly, a tear sliding down her cheek, as she lost control of her emotions for a second.

Sirius upon seeing this reacted instantly, tenderly wiping away the tear with his thumb, and kissing the spot where it had been, before leaning in to capture her mouth in a searing kiss, which Crystal, despite her better judgement, could not help but respond to...

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