CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-ONE

Dear Jane,

Well, I'm in Spain, and I'm writing just like I promised. (I told you I wouldn't forget)

I could literally write for hours about how much they've been working me since I've gotten here. I could tell you about how nice all my team members are, or about how many stupid interviews I'm set up for, but honestly, none of those things are quite that appealing to me. Not like I once thought they would be at least.

I know we agreed not to mope or cry or get stuck inside our own memories. I know we agreed to move on, but to be completely honest, I'm not exactly sure how to do that. I think about you all the time. I'm always wondering what you're feeling. If you're having trouble sleeping. If you're refusing to get out of bed. If you're carrying your wand everywhere you go like I asked you to because I'm terrified that you're so far away from me and that I can't protect you if something bad were to happen.

I stole a pack of your cigarettes by the way. I'm not sure why I did. I could've taken so many other things to remember you by, and I chose to take your cigarettes. I never liked when you smoked, and I still wish you'd stop, yet I have an unopened pack of your cigarettes laying in front of that picture of us. And it's ridiculous how much that little white box with its blue stripes and its big, gold "No. 6" on the front reminds me of you.

Every time I look at it, it takes me back to you, and I can see you nervously tracing the outline of the pack of smokes that are in the pocket of your robes. Or I can see you with a fag stuck behind your ear as you save it for later because it was the last one in the pack, and you'd already thrown the box away. Or I can see you flicking your lighter and staring at it absently because you were bored out of your mind. And I swear that every time I smell cigarette smoke, I can just make out the slightest smell of your shampoo as well, and I can almost hear you laughing, and I can see that beautiful smile of yours.

I hope you still smile like that. I hope you're not just giving everybody fake smiles because you never were very good at making them believable. I just hope you're not sad, and I hope you're not hurting. I want you to be okay. I want you to be happy because you deserve that. I want for you to still be able to go out with your friends and have a good time without being upset.

I want, more than anything, for you to be able to move on. And I know, I sound like a hypocrite because I've just told you that I have no clue how to move on myself. But you were always smarter than me, and something tells me that you're going to figure it out way before I ever do. But I want to make sure that whenever you do move on, you don't settle for someone who doesn't deserve you.

Please, Jane, make sure that whoever is lucky enough to be with you treats you how you deserve. Make sure he respects you. Make sure he loves you. Make sure you don't let him hurt you. And if he does, make sure he apologises, and make sure you don't forgive him right away. Make sure he knows that there's not another girl in the world that can measure up to you. Make sure that he makes you laugh every day, and make sure that he holds you when you're sad. And please, make sure he knows just how wonderful you are, and make sure that he reminds you of how wonderful you are because I know you forget sometimes.

Jane, I love you very much, and I miss you every second of every day. And I want you to know that I consider myself to be the luckiest guy in the world because of the time I got to spend with you. And I wouldn't trade any of it for the world.

I love you so much, Jane.

Love always,

Will

Jane reread the letter over and over again. She didn't want to put it down. It made her smile, but it also made her cry because that was it. The final goodbye. The ability to be able to hold his words in her hands really hit home the reality that he was so far away from her. She couldn't see him. She couldn't hear him. She couldn't touch him. And all she had was a jacket, a letter, and a few photographs in a picture book to remember him by.

It wasn't fair. They had been perfect together. It was like they had been made especially for each other, and Jane was just so angry that she couldn't have this one thing. Will had been taken away from her just like everything else. But who was she supposed to be angry at?

It had been different with her parents. Jane had been mad at her mother for leaving her. She'd been mad at herself for being a bad daughter. She was mad at her father for not loving her enough. But who was to blame this time? It hadn't been Will's fault, and it hadn't been her fault. This hadn't been a messy breakup; this had been an unfortunate circumstance.

Jane supposed she could blame God, but she wasn't even really sure if she believed in a higher power all that much in the first place. Her parents hadn't raised her to be very religious, though she remembered being stuck in a pretty, new Easter dress and going to Mass at St. Mary's with her parents and grandparents when she was little. But Jane never really gave the idea of God much thought, and to believe in Him only to blame Him for the things that went wrong in her life seemed pathetic and unhelpful on a whole new level.

So, Jane took all that anger and blame and shouted it into her pillows at night with "it's not fair"s and "why did this have to happen"s. Sirius was there sometimes, letting her cry to him instead of to her pillows. Letting her fall asleep on his chest as she had that first night because it was easy for her, when she had her eyes closed, to just pretend that he was Will and that everything was okay. But of course, when she woke up, no one would be there, not Sirius and especially not Will.

It had been four days now. Four days of trying not to burst into tears. Four days of Sirius and James trying to keep her mind off of Will. Four days of wondering how in the world she was ever supposed to "move on" like everyone told her she would when she felt like a huge chunk of her insides were missing. Four days of waiting for this letter that she finally had in her hands, and for what? For more tears and more heartache? But at the same time, it almost eased her mind just a bit.

It comforted her, but at the same time, it hurt her. And Jane was so confused about how that could be that she avoided the boys, slipping off to the pond without them knowing because surely they would ask what was wrong if they saw her. And all she'd be able to do was hold up Will's letter because she wouldn't know what was wrong or how to explain it to them.

Jane finally folded the letter up, putting it back into its envelope and tucking it away inside Will's jacket which was folded up beside her on the dock because it was just too warm to wear it. She laid down, using the jacket as a makeshift pillow and pulling one of the sleeves over her face so she could breathe in Will's scent.

Jane let the sleeve fall off of her face slowly as she stared up at the big, fluffy clouds in the sky. In a half-hearted attempt to take her mind off things, Jane tried to spot shapes in the clouds. However, after finding a rather wonky looking duck, her imagination gave out, and she let her mind wander.

Before she knew it, Jane was back on the Quidditch pitch with Will. She could almost feel his lips on her skin, but that stupid panicking voice in the back of her mind shook her out of her pleasant memories. She frowned and sat back up, drumming her fingers against the dock, unable to be comfortable with that thought swirling around inside her head.

Jane tried not to think of it, which only worked for about five whole seconds. She'd worry herself with "what if", and then, she'd dismiss her earlier thoughts as paranoia. However, the "it is possible" would sneak into her head, followed quickly by "but there's really no reason to think…"

Within two minutes, Jane's insides felt like a jumble of nerves twisting into knots. She sprang to her feet and paced around a bit. She flung herself onto the boulder and chain-smoked her way through five cigarettes. She leapt up again, only to fall to the ground and start picking nervously at the grass, tearing the blades into tiny shreds. Finally, she rolled onto her back and let out an exasperated sigh that was really more of a loud, drawn out "ugh!"

All the while, as Jane freaked herself out, she took no notice in the black dog hiding in the trees, watching her. And when Sirius transformed back into himself and asked, rather loudly, "What's eating you?" it scared Jane so much that she felt like she almost jumped out of her skin.

"Bloody hell!" she exclaimed, sitting upright and clutching at her pounding heart. "Are you trying to fucking kill me?"

Sirius was rather amused at the fright he'd given her.

"Merlin, you really are on edge about something, aren't you?" he teased.

Jane frowned at him as he sat down in front of her.

"Where's James?"

"Remember how yesterday, he turned some of the teacups into mice to scare his mum? Yeah, well, some of them got loose," Sirius said, flicking some dirt off of his shoe.

Jane rolled her eyes, but smiled when she imagined James frantically chasing mice around the kitchen floor.

"So, what is it?" Sirius asked.

"What's what?"

"What are you all nervous about?"

"I'm sure if I was nervous about anything, it wouldn't be any of your business," Jane said.

"Ah, come on, Janie. You can tell me," Sirius said, smirking a bit.

Now, that's something that's definitely not going to happen, Jane thought.

"Just worried about Will. Wondering what he's doing. You know, the usual," she said, going back to picking and shredding blades of grass.

Sirius' smirk slowly faded as he watched her. Strands of her hair fell out of her loose bun as she looked down at the ground. He had noticed that her eyes were slightly pink, indicating that she had been crying at some point before he'd found her laying on the dock with Will's jacket sleeve on her face.

Crying. That's what she normally did whenever she was thinking about Will, so that's how he knew she was lying about this. But why? What was she all worked up about? What was she hiding?

Sirius shrugged, resigned to let her keep her secret for now.

"Fine, don't tell me now," he said, starting to pick at the grass with her. "You'll crack eventually."

"And you'd be the last person I'd tell," Jane said.

Two more days, that's what it took before Jane broke down and decided to tell someone. But she wasn't quite so desperate as to tell Sirius or her other Hogwarts friends, and she'd die before she'd let James find out anything. So, she had written, with shaky hands, a letter to Sarah because she knew that if she were in Stockbridge right now, she'd have already told her and Sammy by now anyway.

Jane had walked by herself into town and dropped the letter off at the post office. Asha had seemed very upset with her once she figured out that she wouldn't be delivering this letter. She had nipped at Jane's hands before flying out of the open balcony doors. Jane had felt bad, and dropped a few treats in Asha's cage for when she got back from her sulking.

Jane had had to dig around in her pocket for a few extra pence so that she could get the letter stamped as first class. She wanted her response as soon as possible. She just needed someone else to tell her that she was being paranoid, that she just needed to wait before she started to freak herself out about it because, really, there wasn't any way of knowing this soon after the fact anyway.

Jane had hoped that once she sent the letter, she'd feel at least a tiny bit better. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case. She was still just as nervous and anxious as before. How she wished Sarah and Sammy were there to tell her that she was probably worrying about nothing. On the walk back to the Potter's, Jane had actually debated on whether she should just take the Knight Bus for a quick trip to Stockbridge, but she had decided against it.

The rest of the day was rather uneventful. She hadn't felt up to practising Quidditch with the boys. Mostly, she had stayed on her balcony, pretending to read a book while she silently continued to freak out. Later, despite her normal loathing of the game, she actually asked the boys to play Exploding Snap with her as a way to take her mind off of things.

Of course, then came night-time. She hadn't even bothered changing into her pyjamas. She had flopped down on her bed and stayed that way for a good thirty minutes as she stared up at the canopy of her bed. She hadn't even turned her lights off. Finally, she jumped up and started to straighten up her room as a way to take her mind off of things. She didn't have much to clean as she had cleaned it just a few days ago for the very same reason.

She fell back onto her bed and groaned into her pillow, wishing she knew a spell or something that could somehow tell her for sure. She supposed she could always go to one of those free clinics. They gave tests, right? At least, Jane thought they did; she didn't really know; she'd never had to look into it before. But she didn't even know where the closest one was or if she even had the courage to go to one all by herself.

Unable to stay cooped up in her room for a second longer, Jane decided to go down to the kitchen to fix a late-night snack despite the fact that she wasn't even hungry at all. It was times like this that Jane wished the Potters' had a television set.

As Jane walked out into the hallway, she noticed that she wasn't the only one that still had their lights on. The sliver of light at the bottom of Sirius' door made Jane's mind suddenly leap for joy. Maybe she'd just chat with Sirius for a while until she was good and tired. He'd surely take her mind off things.

Jane slowly pushed open the door and peeked inside, frowning when she didn't see Sirius anywhere. She walked in anyway when she figured he was just using his bathroom.

Now, Jane didn't usually go into Sirius' room. In fact, since she'd been going to the Potter's, she'd probably been in Sirius' room a total of five or six times. Jane was pretty sure that the last time she'd been in his room was the previous summer, and back then, most of his things were still in the process of being unpacked as he started his new life at the Potters', much like Jane was still doing now.

Jane walked in and examined the bookcase, which, surprisingly, held more books than she expected Sirius to have. Even more surprising was the fact that some of them were the very same books that he frequently poked fun at her and Remus for reading. Jane ran her fingers over the spines of some of the books, and a little smile spread across her face.

"What're you doing?"

Jane jumped a little, turning to see Sirius standing in the doorway of his bathroom.

"Nothing, I just couldn't sl—"

Jane stopped when her eyes landed on a painting that hung on the wall near where Sirius was standing. It was a very familiar winter scene of a girl and a black dog sitting in the snow under a large beech tree.

Jane walked over to it slowly, and she lightly brushed her fingers over the bottom of the canvas. Another smile spread across her face, and her chest was filled with this weird warming sensation as she continued to stare at her painting.

Sirius leaned against the wall and couldn't stop himself from grinning at the look on Jane's face.

"You—?" Jane started, looking over at Sirius.

Jane shook her head and let out a small laugh.

"You know, I would have just given it to you," she told him. "You didn't have to pay for it."

"Maybe I was scared that someone else was going to buy it," Sirius said.

"Fifty Galleons?" Jane asked with her brow raised.

Sirius shrugged.

"Pocket change," he joked.

"Why didn't you tell me you bought it?"

He pushed away from the wall and shrugged again.

"Maybe I wanted to see the look on your face when you figured it out."

Without another word, Jane wrapped her arms around Sirius and squeezed him tightly. Sirius chuckled and draped his arms around her as well.

"Have I told you how much I love you?" Jane asked in a teasing sort of way.

Sirius smiled and rested his chin on top of Jane's head.

"You could stand to mention it more."