Chapter 19: Visit From A Brother

Remus had taken cover in the library, it was the day after Sirius had left to the Potter's for his suspension time. Remus was just as angry as James was with Sirius. Snape now knew he was a werewolf. Remus looked around the library to see if anyone was looking at him as if they knew. Dumbledore assured Remus that Snape promised he wouldn't tell anyone. But that wasn't making him feel better. He didn't trust Snape with his biggest secret.

Since he came back from the Shrieking shack, and Dumbledore told him what happened, and then Remus had Sirius apologize to him before leaving. Then Remus heard from James the full story. Remus was slightly angry with James as well. He wasn't sure why, but since Sirius was absent, he needed to be angry with someone.

Remus felt someone over his shoulder, he turned around quickly to see Britney smiling at him. Remus relaxed.

"Hey Remus," Britney said brightly. She sat down beside him and looked at him. "What's the matter?" she asked frowning. Remus just scowled.

"Nothing," Remus snapped.

Britney winced slightly. "Ok, then, I won't ask," she said quietly. "Have you seen Sirius at all? I haven't seen him since Thursday." Remus glared at Britney for mentioning Sirius' name. Even though it wasn't her fault, for him being mad at Sirius.

"He had a family emergency," Remus muttered angrily. Dumbledore told James, Remus, Peter and Snape to go with that story.

Britney's face fell. "Oh," Britney said disappointed. "When does he get back?"

"Two weeks," Remus said not looking at Britney and writing down his homework.

Britney frowned. "Oh," Britney said this in such a sad voice that Remus looked at her with confusion and sympathy. Britney had this thing over people, where she could get their attention whether she was sad, happy or just beautiful.

Remus pulled Britney into a hug, partly so he could make Britney feel better and partly because he needed one. Britney hugged back, when they finally pulled apart. Britney opened her mouth. "I am going to go out with Sirius," she said bluntly.

"What?" Remus said shocked.

"Is that weird?" Britney asked laughing. She looked down at her hands.

"Why?" Remus asked curious.

"Well, I don't know, Dom and I broke up, and I spent my Valentines with Sirius, and everyday since then. Well, except the last couple of nights." She said giving Remus a hopeless smile.

Remus didn't want the day when Britney agreed to go out with Sirius to come. Britney deserved more than Sirius' player ways.

"Ok, well, I'll get going," she said. "I'll see you later Remus." She got up and left. Britney walked out of the library and found herself wandering the dark corridors. Many people were outside playing in the snow, so she jumped slightly when she heard someone call her name.

"Britney," said a voice. She turned around. For a moment she thought it was Sirius but then looked closely to see it was Sirius' brother Regulus.

"Hey Regulus," Britney murmmered. She didn't really know Regulus much, he was really weird, and Britney knew he was in that Slytherin group that was probably mixed in with Lord Voldemort. She kept her distance as Regulus walked closer to her.

"I've heard some funny rumours that you and my brother are together," Regulus sneered. He put his hand on Britney's arm and moved it to her shoulder and then to her neck as he moved the hair out of her face. Britney stepped away. Regulus smirked. "My brother doesn't deserve you." He scoffed. "You're too beautiful." Britney took a step back again.

"What do you want?" she asked coolly. She kept her eyes very closely on Regulus while he walked closer to her.

"Well, without my brother here, or your little Dominic Hayden, watching you. I figured I could make my move," he said watching Britney with a weird look in his eyes.

"You thought wrong," Britney snapped.

"I can't believe you still have a soft spot for my brother after what he did," Regulus said.

Britney stayed silent. Regulus started circling her.

"What did Lupin tell you? That my dear brother had a family emergency? Wouldn't I be there if it was a family emergency?" he asked Britney. Britney shrugged. "No," he said. "My brother nearly killed a student. Mother is not happy, saying that my brother is even more of a disgrace for still claiming his last name as Black."

Britney swallowed. The deserted corridor was all too convenient. "Killed a student?" Britney asked cautiously.

"Yeah," Regulus drew out his answer. "Well, nearly." He moved towards Britney and put his mouth to her ear. "Bye." He pulled away from Britney and walked down the corridor, where he came from.

Britney shuddered, a sigh of relief.

The night before Sirius returned was being kept very quietly between Remus and James. Who were slowly calming down after the incident. Sirius had, of course, sent quite a few letters to them apologizing. They sat in the library, while Remus did his homework and James pretended to do his. Remus told James about the whole Britney situation with Sirius, which made James groan loudly.

"He is going to break her heart, then she'll kill him . . . actually, that doesn't sound that bad. We wouldn't have to worry about him screwing up." James said thoughtfully. Remus smiled slightly.

"We're going to forgive him sooner or later," Remus said finishing up his homework on Thursday night.

"How do you know?" James shot a nasty glare at Remus.

"I know because Sirius is our best friend, and our lives would be boring without him." James sighed. "Don't get me wrong, I'm still mad at him, but it's subsiding." James nodded.

"James, Remus, you can tell your jackass friend that I hate him." Britney came towards them receiving a few glares from students studying. James and Remus looked up and watched Britney violently pull up a chair and sit down glaring at them.

James and Remus opened their mouths to say something.

"Don't start!" Britney pointed at them. "I know you two are pissed off at him. I know you Marauders more than you think. I'm not stupid!"

"Look Britney -"

"No, Remus! I know he nearly killed a guy!" She snapped at them.

James gave her a shocked look. "Who told you that?" James asked bewildered.

Britney opened her mouth but waved James off. "It doesn't matter! You can tell your arse faced two-timing wimp of a friend to screw himself when he comes back tomorrow. Because, I'm going to ignore him!"

"Well, we'll probably ignore him too, so, I don't know if we can pass that message," James said.

"Fine," she snapped again, she got up and left the library.

"So, Sirius is coming tonight!" Peter said sitting down for lunch on Friday. He had this big grin on his face, happy that his friend was coming back.

"Yeah," James muttered jabbing his fork into his baked potatoes.

Remus stayed silent. "You two aren't still mad at him are you?" Peter asked slowly, watching his Marauder friends.

They both stayed silent, and continued to pick at their food.

"Come on, we've been friends with Sirius for years. James you've been best friends with him since you were eight!" Peter said. James shrugged. "Are you going to be mad at him forever?" Peter asked. "We can talk if you want."

"Stop acting like a chick Wormtail," James said, giving Peter a weird look. Peter turned slightly pink, and decided to drop the topic.

Remus started looking around the Great Hall, while students talked and ate, when he noticed a large bouquet of flowers in a guy's hand, was walking into the Great Hall. Remus looked around, to see that the bouquet of flowers was catching other students attention. Remus groaned when he noticed it was Dom holding the bouquet of flowers. Dom brought the bouquet right up behind Britney, who snorted into her drink when she saw him. She gave Dom a funny look.

"Britney," Dom said.

"Don't start," Britney said with a scowl.

"I love you!" He said loudly, so that everyone in the hall could hear him.

"Are you drunk?" Britney whispered to him. Lily was glaring at Dom, the whole time. Lily caught Remus' eyes. They both rolled their eyes.

The whole entire hall was staring at Dom and Britney.

"Britney, I'm sorry!" Dom said to Britney.

"Yeah? Well this whole thing is getting a little old!" Britney snapped at him. "How many more times do we have to go over this?"

"Please," Dom said, giving her a sad look. Britney's expression softened.

"Oh, shit," she muttered. Dom smiled, and put the flowers down and hugged her. The whole entire hall tried to get back to their food, but kept watching as Dom held Britney in his arms saying how sorry he was.

"Perfect timing for Sirius, eh?" Peter said looking at James and Remus, who ignored Peter completely.

Sirius walked into the Gryffindor Common Room, with a lot of suspicious looks. No one had seen this Marauder in weeks. Sirius gave them awkward smiles. He headed up the Boys Dormitory stairs when he saw that his fellow Marauders weren't there. He opened the Boys dormitory door to see all his friends. James was on his bed reading a Quidditch magazine, Remus was doing his homework on the floor and Peter was playing with a kitten that Sirius had never seen before.

"Hey," Sirius said awkwardly as he looked at all his friends. Peter jumped up and gave Sirius a big hug. Sirius patted him on the back. "James, Remus, hey," Sirius said looking at them. James looked up from his Quidditch magazine. "I just wanted to say, I am so sorry, for everything I did. Telling Snape, getting you involved Prongs, using Moony. It was a bad, sick prank, and I feel very awful about how it turned out." Sirius said quickly, looking at his friends.

James sighed. "It's fine Padfoot," James said and hugged Sirius. Sirius smiled. He turned to Remus.

Remus stood up and hugged Sirius too. "You're lucky you were gone for two weeks so we could cool off." He grinned at Sirius.

"Thanks mate," Sirius said. Peter gave a happy shout. They all turned to him, who was smiling shyly. "So, what's been up?" Sirius asked as he fell on to his bed.

"Hey, no, I want to know how my parents reacted," James said grinning from ear to ear, as he sat back down on his bed.

Sirius winced. "Well, my mother sent me a howler, which I don't really want to get into to much. But your parents said they were really disappointed in me. It's amazing how much effect that had on me." Sirius said thoughtfully. James nodded in understanding. "But yeah, I didn't do much, I just sort of walked around the house everyday. I don't know, more like ran around the house like a loner." Sirius smiled.

James laughed, while Remus shook his head.

"So what's been going on around here?" Sirius asked looking around the dormitory that he missed.

James and Remus shared a brief glance. "Nothing," James said shrugging his shoulders. Sirius nodded.

The next day on the Saturday afternoon, Sirius was walking around the castle with James, just joking around. Sirius and James were doing harmless pranks, to avoid getting into anymore trouble. James had just done a prank which caused to Sirius fall and land on his back. A short scream came, Sirius looked stared up to see Britney looking down at him.

Sirius grinned. "I can see up your skirt," he laughed. Britney stepped away Sirius got up slowly, James was laughing hard and walked over to Sirius and Britney. "Hey, Brit, what's been up?" Britney glared at him. Sirius seemed to realize that she wasn't happy.

"What do you mean 'what's been up'?" Britney mimicked him. Britney hit Sirius's shoulder. Sirius put a hand to his shoulder.

"What was that for?" Sirius snapped.

"Don't be stupid Sirius, you know what it was for!" Britney said glaring at Sirius.

"I haven't been here in case you haven't noticed, so I bloody well don't know what's been up!" Sirius said glaring back at Britney.

"That's your fault for not being here!" Britney said. "It's funny, you know? I mean, you and I were hanging out for about a week, and I broke up with Dom for you, and guess what I find? You left because of some 'family emergency'! Oh, but your brother was here so it wasn't a family emergency!" Britney yelled at him.

Sirius stood gaping at her, not sure what to say.

"Then I find out you nearly killed a guy, Sirius!" Britney pushed Sirius, who stumbled back again.

Sirius looked quickly at James outraged that James might have told Britney.

"It wasn't me," James said putting his hands up in front of him.

"It wasn't him, or Remus, or Peter!" Britney said quickly. "It's funny, your brother is a sneaky little perv like you!" Britney shouted, she then quickly walked away.

"I am so confused," Sirius said looking at James for help.

A/N: Sorry It took a while to update...i haven't gotten around to writing anymore chapters. I just got back to school on monday after two weeks off...the first week because i was sick and the second week because it was spring break. I missed a lot of work so i've been spending the past couple of days catching up. I'll try to writethe nextchapter A.S.A.P!

Thanks for the reviews, keep 'em comin!

R/R!