Hey dudes! Here's the next exciting installment of the freak show!... hmm... cheers for the reviews, as always, they're so cool - I can't believe someone (again, I can't remember who, sorry!) read the whole thing in one go! Hope you enjoy it...
Chapter Twenty-Five: We're onto you!
James, Sirius and the rest of the Gryffindor team joined up with Lily, Sarah, Remus and Peter and made their way back to the castle and the common room. They were a subdued crowd, Lily trying to comfort James by saying he'd played wonderfully, Peter looking strangely one-sided without Adriana, and Sirius glumly thinking about Bethan, probably celebrating with Marley right now.
Noticing the continued absence of Adriana, he remembered seeing her in the Slytherin stands and turned to Peter.
"Where's –" he started to ask.
"Bethan?" Peter finished for him. "I thought you'd ask that, and I won't lie to you – she's with Branson."
"Well, I assumed that," Sirius said. "I was going to ask where Adriana was. I didn't see her with you in the stands." He didn't tell Peter where he had seen her.
Peter's face clouded with worry. "She was feeling really ill, so she had to miss the game. She's in the Hospital Wing." Sirius' mouth dropped open in dismay and disbelief: the girl had stooped to new levels of deceit! Peter took this reaction to be one of concern for Adriana's health. "Yeah, I'm not sure what was wrong, but... maybe I should go visit her now."
"Yes, maybe you should, be a good boyfriend," Sirius agreed, thinking that Peter should discover Adriana's dishonesty for himself. That way, he, and the others, would be more inclined to believe Sirius at last.
The group had nearly reached the secret entrance to their common room when they found themselves facing Severus Snape, who had been loitering in the corridor. He immediately stepped out in front of them, looking unusually bold and eager to pick a fight.
"Very impressive playing today, Potter," he sneered, obviously revelling in their recent defeat. "I suppose you don't know what to do with yourself – you'll have to get used to failure from now on, I'd say."
"I expect I could take a few pointers from you, Snivellus," James replied, "although I think I'll carry on washing my hair, whatever happens."
Snape flushed slightly under his greasy pallor. "Oh nark off, Potter," he snarled, as though they had got in his way.
"Nark off... I always loved that phrase," Sirius smiled reflectively. "But I've never had the guts to say it – now I'm glad I didn't, it sounds ridiculous."
"Who asked you, Black?" Snape glared at him.
"You're right, no one did, I suppose I just can't control my big gob." Sirius shrugged. "Snivellus, I hate to be the one who breaks it to you... who am I kidding? I love to be the one to break it you! But the point is, however much you try to be a dude, you'll always be a dweeb. If I could help you I... probably wouldn't, but," he finished sadly, "It's just not to be." Without giving Snape another glance, he strode off towards Gryffindor Tower, and the others followed, laughing as they left behind a very disgruntled Slytherin.
In the common room, the friends sat together in front of the fire as usual, talking about the game and eating the food that James had taken from the kitchens to cheer everyone up. Sirius split off from the group and turned to Remus, ready to tell him about his new information on Adriana.
"Moony – she was watching the game from the Slytherin stands!" he said in a hushed voice. "She was sitting next to Snape."
"But Peter said she was ill in the Hospital Wing," Remus said, frowning.
"It was a lie! I saw her sitting next to Snape and some Slytherin cow," Sirius assured him, his brown eyes wide, "I looked her right in the eye, and she smiled and waved, as if she was doing nothing wrong."
"Well..."
"And don't you say she was doing nothing wrong!" Sirius interrupted. "Okay, so there's nothing really wrong with sitting with Snape and the Slytherins, although it's a bit weird, but she lied to Peter, and you can't say that that's acceptable! Why did she tell Peter she was ill, just so that she could sit with them? There's obviously something bizarre going on here, don't you agree?"
"Yep, she's as crooked as a dog's hind leg, alright," Remus agreed seriously.
"This is no time to make jokes, we're onto something here!"
"I wasn't joking," Remus replied. "I've just been waiting for ages for an opportunity to use that phrase."
"Oh." Sirius thought back over it. "It's a very good phrase, well done."
"Thank you." Remus smiled, pleased with himself and the simile, before he remembered the situation. "So what're you gonna do now?" he asked quietly.
"Well, Peter's gone to visit her in the Hospital Wing," Sirius said. "Now, he's either gonna come back here and say that she wasn't there, or, she'll be onto him and will have sneaked back there after the game, knowing that he'd be worried about her."
"I think she'll do that," Remus said.
"Me too."
Sensing that his friends were being secretive, James called over, "Hey, what're you two discussing behind your hands?"
Remus looked at Sirius, unsure what to say, but Sirius answered without hesitation, "Adriana, and what her secret agenda could be."
"Oh." James grinned, thinking it might be a joke. "So what conclusions have you come up with?"
"That all depends on whether Peter comes back with her or not, from the Hospital Wing," Sirius told him. "I saw her at the game, watching with the Slytherins, but she told him that she was ill – what explanation can she have for that?"
"With the Slytherins?" James repeated, flabbergasted. "Nah!"
Sirius opened his mouth to argue but at that moment the sound of the portrait hole opening made him twist round on the sofa to see who was coming in. Sure enough, as he and Remus had predicted, it was Peter and behind him was Adriana, looking as angelic as usual.
The two of them made their way over to join the group, and Remus nudged Sirius, urging him to say something.
"So, feeling better now?" Sirius asked Adriana, trying to at least make an attempt to sound as though he cared.
"Yes, much better thanks," she replied sweetly, giving him the exact same smile she had from the Slytherins' stand at the game.
"I'm sure all the excitement of the game made you forget all about being ill?" he asked, looking her straight in the eyes, searching for a flicker, anything in those blue depths.
"I'm sorry?" she asked after a moment, the tiniest confused frown on her face.
So it's gonna be like this, Sirius thought, before answering, "I saw you at the match, you can't lie this time!" Beside him on the sofa Remus shifted uncomfortably; he always hated confrontations. When Adriana continued to put on the innocent act, Sirius said, "Let me remind you: you were sitting next to Snape, and a girl with curly brown hair, and you smiled up at me and waved as I flew past."
"You must have been hallucinating, Sirius," Adriana smiled again and waved away his accusations. "You really do come out with the funniest things sometimes. I was in the Hospital Wing, I missed the match." She looked around, and saw that everyone was looking at her; they didn't know the length of Sirius' suspicions, and found the whole conversation baffling.
"In fact I still don't feel one hundred percent, so I think I'll go and have a rest upstairs," she said, before kissing Peter quickly and hurrying up to the dormitory.
Sirius frowned after her, then turned to Remus. "See – she knows I'm onto her, Moony! She practically bolted from that conversation!"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Peter demanded, looking the most baffled out of everyone. "What exactly are you accusing Adriana of?"
"I'm sorry to say, Wormtail, but I have reason to believe that your girlfriend's up to something a wee bit dodgy," Sirius answered.
"Yes, we think she's as crooked as a dog's hind leg," Remus added.
"Yeah, it's a good line but don't wear it out, mate," Sirius told him. Remus sat back in his chair, looking defeated.
"Exactly what reasons do you have for believing this?" Peter asked, looking unimpressed. "For entertainment value, I'll listen."
Sirius turned to answer him. "I've seen her hanging around with the Slytherins – she claims they're 'just friends', but considering that they were Lucius Malfoy, Snape and my brother and my cousin, I would rethink that story. And today I definitely saw her with my own two eyes watching the game – she was nowhere near the Hospital Wing and was certainly not ill!"
Peter took all this in, his expression angry, then shook his head. "No, it's a load of rubbish, you don't know what you're talking about!"
"Well I'm sorry if I'm embarrassing you by telling you your girlfriend's untrustworthy –" Sirius started.
"You're not embarrassing me, you're embarrassing yourself," Peter interrupted, as he rose from his seat. "I'm not listening to this anymore, I'm going out."
"Where to?" Remus asked, looking concerned.
"I don't know," Peter answered as he reached the door again. "I'll see you guys later."
And he was gone. Sirius stared at the portrait hole, and raised a finger to point at where Peter had been. "He can't accept it," he told the whole group, who were looking shocked; they hadn't expected this sort of talk at all. "He's finally got himself a beautiful girlfriend who apparently likes him, too, and he can't accept that she's no good."
James looked at the others before venturing, "It sounds to me like you can't accept that she is perfectly nice, and just prefers Wormtail to you."
Sirius banged his fist down on the arm of the sofa. "No! For God's sake, why can't you people accept that I no longer fancy Adriana? I'm telling you, she's –"
"No good, up to something, untrustworthy, we heard you," James finished. "I'm sorry to say it, but all your 'evidence' sounds more like educated guesswork."
"Well, fine, believe what, or who, you like," Sirius said wearily. "But sometime soon one of us is gonna be embarrassed, and I tell you what, matey boy, it's not gonna be me."
"Sirius, don't get angry with me," James said, uncharacteristically serious and quiet. "I'm just telling you how all this sounds. What are you saying exactly?"
"I'm saying that she can't come in here and start fucking things up when we've got along just fine without her."