Author's Note:

Ok so I forgot the OotP sign up because I was caught up in ice skating and messages, so that's been added in to Chapter 46 for anyone who missed it, sorry!

To Sirius the pain only got worse when he had to go through his day without Kara.

"Only you" He kept whispering to himself, not letting anybody try to comfort him. He didn't even sleep in his bed, he'd taken to sitting by the fire all night, staring into the flames until exhaustion finally took over.

Nobody had seen Sasha for days; she'd been in bed non-stop, not even coming out to eat, the house elves had to post food under the door for her and Shanice and Violet had been moved into another dorm. Everyone sat blankly straight through Christmas, barely noticing it passing as it was overshadowed by their own grief. Two days before school began again James, Lily, and Remus decided she couldn't be alone any longer and made their way up to her door, James, and Remus wedged between the two walls so they didn't fall.

"Sasha?" Remus called through the door, knocking loudly "We need to know you're alright"

Nothing.

"SASHA?" Lily shouted now but James shushed her.

"No offense Lils but I don't think you're the person she wants to speak to right now" He explained. Wanting to argue but realising he was right Lily nodded silently and tried to stop herself bursting into tears.

"I'm breaking the door down" James announced after more silence. Swinging himself on the doorframe he went straight through the door and landed in a pile of rotten food and splintered wood.

"Sasha?" He called out, choking on the stale air and dust that blew out of the room. It was like a haunted house, pitch black with the curtains not looking like they'd been opened for months, all of the mirrors were smashed and Lily's old wardrobe had been bashed in.

"Oh my God" Lily whispered, dodging her way around endless plates of uneaten food.

There were no longer any mattresses or bedding on the beds apart from Kara's, and every draw had been emptied onto the floor. It took a while to adjust to the darkness but slowly James could make out a huddled figure in Kara's bed under the sheets.

"Sasha?" He asked softly, making his way to the bed. She whimpered and shuffled around.

"Don't" Her voice was raspy and croaked, barely recognisable as hers "Leave me alone"

"Let us help" He whispered, slowly starting to pull back the duvet "We only want to help"

Out of energy, Sasha just lay with her eyes closed, still wearing the gown they'd put on her in the infirmary two weeks before. Her hair was matted, and in a pile on top of her head. Purple-black circles were under her eyes. She had refused to eat anything other than bread and water since that day so she was a shadow of her former self, barely able to move.

"Oh gosh Sash" Lily was crying with the state she saw her in as she made her way to her bed, trying to avoid the smashed glass. Sasha's eyes flickered to Lily and suddenly she was scowling.

"Leave" She said weakly but firmly.

"You've got to let me help" Lily rubbed her eyes furiously, wishing she could get the old Sasha back.

"LEAVE!" It sounded like her vocal chords had been through a cheese grater and shouting used up her last bit of energy so she fell back into bed, out of tears to cry.

"Someone get Madam Pomfrey!" Lily shouted to the boys, running towards Sasha and wrapping her arms around her "NOW"

Lily tried visiting Sasha in her private room every morning and evening but was shouted away every time. Madam Pomfrey tried explaining to Lily that Sasha was depressed and was acting like that to everyone, but she could see the true hated in her eyes every time she looked at her.

"I've lost them both" She wept into James' shoulder after their first week back. She'd left the Infirmary minutes before, finally giving up on all hope of getting Sasha back, and found James sat on the sofa trying to loose himself in a book before letting Lily fall into him.

"You'll always have the memories" James stroked her hair "You can never loose what they meant to you"

"But I want them now. I need my friends" James tried to imagine having Remus, Sirius, and Peter taken away from him in one day and it broke his heart.

"I'll always be here" He reassured her, kissing her forehead and pulling her closer, worried that if her let her go for too long she'd be taken away just like Sasha and Kara. As if she'd read his thoughts Lily looked up at him.

"Sasha's not gone" She said firmly "She needs us. At least I thought she did"

Soon Lily fell asleep on James, and he lowered her head onto the sofa, and wrapped her in a blanket with a glass of water next to her.

For the next month Sasha was kept in the Infirmary where Madam Pomfrey could monitor her eating and she could get grief counselling from the school counsellor, so Lily, James, Remus, and Peter were shocked when she entered the common room on the first Friday of February. With her head hung down she walked over to where everyone was sat by the fire, avoiding eye contact with Lily.

"I can't deal with this anymore" She finally admitted, still staring at the floor "It's not getting any better, I can't be here"

"Sasha we…" Lily wanted more than anything then to tell Sasha everything she'd been keeping in for the past four weeks.

"No. Don't disturb me" She snapped "None of you can see it, but I can. Since I was eleven Hogwarts has been a magical place, safe from all harm. It was like I was in a bubble and the powerful wizard would protect me from everything, I separated the war from Hogwarts. However recent events have made me see nothing's what I thought it was. This school is not safe at all, I no longer trust the 'great wizard' who is now simply Albus Dumbledore to me"

"You can't blame the school" Remus argued.

"No. Hogwarts let those bastards kill my best friend. Dumbledore had no safety plan for vulnerable students getting onto the train. I can't trust it, which is why" she breathed in "I'm leaving the magic world" everyone around the circle gasped, wondering if it was a joke "Just look at what's happening here! I just want to have a normal life in the muggle world.

"What are you going to do?" Remus shook his head at what she'd just said.

"My aunt's a squib; I'm moving over to Ireland to live with her and my uncle, I'm getting away from this crap. Away from you" Sasha looked directly at Lily, making her burst into tears.

"I COULDN'T HELP IT" Lily finally broke down "DO YOU NOT THINK I'M HURT TOO?" James had to hold her down on the sofa, trying to calm her down.

"You weren't hurt enough to fight until the end" Sasha said, clearly trying to hold back screams of annoyance.

"YES. I DID" Lily breathed deeply, clenching her fists and finally realised she couldn't shout away her problems "I saw Severus, it broke me down, but just for a second. I watched as my childhood best friend became the thing I hated, and it killed me"

"It killed Kara" Sasha practically spat, the mention of her name acting like a knife in Lily's stomach and she was sick of attempting to be reasonable.

"FINE. LEAVE. SEE IF I CARE" Lily broke free of James and brushed past Sasha, storming out of the common room without looking back.

As Lily ran down the stairs she charged straight into Marlene, Dorcas, and Emmeline coming the other way, instead of barging past she just dropped into them, not able to cry out of anger so she just clenched up into a ball.

"Lily?" Marlene grabbed Lily's arms to steady her "Are you ok?" Emmeline bent down and put her hand on her shoulder whilst Dorcas took her bag from her.

"Come on, I think you need a cup of tea and a friend" Emmeline smiled, not asking what had happened, just helped her up and let her lean on her as they walked down to the Great Hall to find a house elf.

"Sasha's moving to Ireland" Lily finally said as they sat behind a bookcase in the library. Marlene, Dorcas, and Emmeline had been chatting totally normally to Lily as they drunk her tea, giving her time to calm down.

"Oh gosh no!" Emmeline leaned forwards and put her hand on Lily's arm.

"No, I think it's good" Lily closed her eyes for a second and thought it through "We could have never been the same again, in the time when we needed each other the most we weren't there. She blames me for Kara's death"

"No" Marlene gasped "Everyone knows that had nothing to do with you! You were the only ones brave enough to go in and try to save them"

"We've just got nothing left" Lily clutched the mug of tea tightly "Nothing"

"What are you going to do?" Dorcas asked, taking the mug out of Lily's shaking hands before she dropped it.

"There's nothing I can do. Sometimes things just get broken past repair" Lily paused for a second too long and flashed back to the week before it happened when they'd been camping in the woods and how oblivious to everything in the normal world they were in that little tent up in the tree telling horror stories. "I suppose I just want to know why"

"Lils no-one knows why anything's happening at the moment, but that's not why we fight it, we fight it because no matter what the reason is, it's brutally ripping apart the world" Marlene explained, nodding afterwards like she truly believed everything she said.

"I suppose, I'm going to forever fight in her name though, never forgotten" Lily was reassuring herself more than the others, she had a thing about never letting people get forgotten.

Nothing could be physically done about Sirius, he was eating and turning up to lessons, just never talking to anyone or being seen anywhere outside of lessons. A week after Sasha had packed her bags and been escorted out of the school by her Aunt and Uncle Lily opened the mermaid portrait to find Sirius stood soaking wet outside looking distraught. Without asking questions she pulled him inside and put him next to the fire, wrapping him in a throw and getting him a tub of ice cream.

"What have you been doing!" Lily jumped opposite him, staring at his dripping wet hair.

"I went to the lake in the forest" He started to explain, his voice cracking as he spoke "I've been going everywhere we went, I was going to stay in the tent again but I couldn't get it up... my hands wouldn't stop shaking... the rain..." Sirius broke down and threw himself into Lily' arms.

"I know" She whispered to him, wiping away the tear running down his cheek "I know"

"I love her"

"At least you had what you had" Lily hushed "She knew in the end"

Sirius said nothing, just curled up tighter.

"Come on, you know Kara wouldn't allow this" Lily pointed out, pushing Sirius back so he could look her in the eyes "She'd be telling you to stop moping and to go do something stupid" That made Sirius chuckle slightly.

"Ok then Lilypop" He nodded, slowly getting up and holding out his hand after furiously rubbing his eyes, grateful Lily wasn't looking at him with the same pitiful eyes everyone seemed to recently "Come do something stupid with me"

Lily smiled and grabbed his hand, not having a clue what he was planning.

They stopping by a locked broom cupboard which Sirius suspiciously had a key to. It was then that Lily found out where the Marauders stored there prank materials, she wasn't allowed inside but Sirius came out with his arms bursting with fireworks.

"Something stupid" He smiled, piling the fireworks into Lily's arms and getting more before taking them outside where the rain had fortunately stopped.

After lighting the fireworks and getting a place leaning on rocks Sirius and Lily watched in awe as the sky exploded in a mass of fire and light.

"For Kara" Lily beamed, squeezing Sirius' hand.

"For Kara"

Author's Note

Hey, Hannah here, as you already knew. I need to know what you've thought of the last couple of chapters! I've seriously just been sat here waiting for a review like "They'll hate it, they'll hate it, oh my God I can't take it", any feedback's always appreciated good or bad, hope you're enjoying my story, apart from that

Mischief Managed