A/N: Edited 8/18.


October 15th, 1976

"Potter has lost his mind!" I slammed my bag down on the floor and shrieked at Lily, who was sitting on the nice couch near the fireplace. I flopped onto the couch next to her, letting my body go limp. Lily laughed and pushed me away from her with her foot, which had been curled up under her as she read from her Ancient Runes book.

"You're getting mud everywhere. What torture technique did James come up with this time?" I noticed that Lily had stopped calling him Potter, and hadn't called him a toe-rag in months. I'd really have to come up with something soon to get them together; the tiptoe game they were playing around each other was getting irritating.

"He had us practice feinting for two hours after it started pouring. Poor Mary had no chance of finding the snitch in that kind of weather, Black nearly took Kelly's head off when his bat flew out of his hand, and I swear to Merlin that I'll never get my kit dry again," I groaned, my head hitting the back of the couch. My whole body was aching from the insanity of James's drills and the cold seeping into my bones. I closed my eyes and highly considered never moving again, but Lily wasn't about to let me get away with that.

"Go take a hot shower. You'll feel better. Go, go, go!" She kept pushing me with her foot, until I gave in and rolled off the couch. I noticed James and Sirius had finally made it to the common room, having stayed behind the rest of the team to track down and capture the snitch that Mary had given up on.

"I swear the two of you are plotting to kill me," I teased her, pointedly staring at James. Her face turned scarlet at the mention of her and Potter as a unit, but James just looked confused.

"What did I do? I just got here. Sirius, did I do something in the last ten seconds that I don't know about?" James asked, bewildered. He looked around him, as if expecting to see a prank that he forgotten he'd set up.

"I think she's talking about the fact that she looks like a drowned rat, and it's definitely your fault," Laughed Sirius. Sirius glanced in my direction, but I looked away. As James sputtered about how the team had to be prepared to play in any condition, I made my escape upstairs without responding to Sirius. He had been acting like nothing had happened, and I had been doing my best to avoid talking to him at all costs. Honestly, the plan was working well; the others barely noticed that we weren't talking, since we never really did before other than the odd taunt here and there. If Sirius noticed, he hadn't said anything to me. I just had to put up with him for two more years, and then I could be rid of him forever. Five down, two to go. This thought cheered me up, and I turned on the shower as hot as it could go. The warm water was just the magic I needed to wash Sirius Black's presence from my aura. I didn't believe in obscure magic like that, auras were more Mary's focus – she was very interested in all things Divination. When it came to Sirius Black, though, he needed to be cleansed from mind, body and spirit.

After my shower, I got dressed into comfy sweatpants and an old Quidditch kit of James's. Jase had always made me change when I wore this, but it was my comfiest shirt, and I wasn't going to let him get into my mind anymore. I went back downstairs to work on my Ancient Runes translations with Lily. Lily was still sitting on the couch by the fireplace, but both James and Sirius had joined her in the armchairs. I must have taken longer to shower than I thought, since they were both already changed. Lily looked over her shoulder when she heard me coming downstairs. Her eyes roamed over my body, and I noticed a glint of jealousy in her eyes. Not that she had any reason to complain, James must have given her two jerseys a year since second year – it wasn't my fault that pre-teen Lily had burned them all, while I held on to the one he gave me fourth year. I smiled at her sarcastically, and said exuberantly, "What's that Lily? Is that jealousy I see? Don't worry, love, one day you'll be a Potter and will wear James's name on a Puddlemere United shirt to every one of his games, your six kids in tow!"

Lily blushed again and looked at a loss for words, but James, uncharacteristically, pretended to ignore this exchange and focused on the essay he was correcting. I snuck a look at Sirius, who also was uncharacteristically not jumping in to tease Lily and James. He was looking at me with an expression that I didn't recognize; was he mad at me for ignoring him? No, it didn't look like anger, which usually looked like he had smelled something unpleasant. This was something I had never seen on him before. Oh well, I had translations to do, and Sirius's facial expressions weren't that important to me.

We sat in silence, all diligently working, before I realized that we were missing a couple of people. "Where are Pettigrew and Remus?" I asked, looking at James. James looked up from his essay, looked at Sirius, and when he realized that Sirius hadn't looked up from the star chart he was working on, cleared his throat.

"Pete is in detention because he skipped Care of Magical Creatures twice last week. Professor Kettleburn wouldn't have noticed, but he said he had mumblemumps both times. Kettleburn is pretty oblivious, but even he was suspicious that Peter wasn't mumbling at all. Remus is upstairs resting," James said nonchalantly. It was so cute that the boys thought we had no idea about Remus – Lily and I had worked out that he was a werewolf in our third year when we first started studying the lunar cycles in astronomy.

"I'm sure he'll feel better in a couple of days. He always does, right?" Lily muttered while scratching out something on the parchment she was working on. She was biting her tongue between her teeth as she concentrated.

"Yeah, just a headache," James said quickly before changing the topic. "Addie, do you remember what Professor McGonagall was saying about the properties of human transfiguration that differ from inanimate transfiguration?"

James and I spent the rest of the evening debating the five properties of basic transfiguration, and how they apply differently to humans than they do animals. James and Sirius were both brilliant at Transfiguration. It drove Lily mad that they were able to outperform her in every class, when she spent hours practicing spells that they performed perfectly without ever looking at it before. Lily had stormed upstairs thirty minutes into our debate, as usual. She couldn't handle it when she couldn't follow James's train of thought, or when he came up with a point that she hadn't considered. Sirius stayed mostly quiet, only jumping in when specifically addressed by James. I let James debate his points without involving myself.

After I made a particularly good point about the third basic property, James stormed off upstairs in a huff that he couldn't think of a good counterpoint. It was just Sirius and I now. I busied myself with gathering up my books and parchment, but Sirius startled me as he spoke sharply.

"Why are you ignoring me? You haven't spoken to me in weeks. We had that big talk, and I though we were going to be friends, but then you refuse to speak to me, not even insult me?"

I was shocked. How could he pretend he didn't know? I half expected myself to shout at him. Instead, my voice came out just a notch above a whisper, "And I thought that you had a soul, but you just wanted information to use against me to get me to join the Quidditch Team."

"Wait what? What are you talking about?" Sirius looked confused, like this was the last direction he had been expecting this conversation to go in.

"At breakfast the day of try-outs. You were blackmailing me to join the team. All you care about is the stupid team. I thought that you cared about me, even a little, and then you turn around and make everything about you," My voice was rising, a hysterical note creeping in.

"Wait, Jones, that wasn't at all what I was doing! I know how much Quidditch means to you, and I figured since everything went down after the Quidditch final last year, that was the reason you didn't want to play. I just wanted you to play again – you always look so…at peace when you're flying. I just wanted to push you into it. I never, in a million years, would have told anyone about Jase. I gave you my word that I wouldn't, and I stand by my word," He said, shaking his head at me in exasperation. It was surprising to me that he was so observant of my behaviors, and had correctly guessed the real reason I didn't want to play any more.

"Then why didn't you just talk to me in private? Why did you have to make me think you would betray me?" I asked in a small voice. He got up and sat next to me on the couch. I looked at him, begging myself not to cry again, not over this.

"Because I knew that unless the others thought you had already agreed to it, you would never have done it. Did I manipulate you a little? Yes. Do I feel guilty about it? No! Because I know you love flying, and I know that without me pushing you, you would have let that asshole take away something from you that you love. I wasn't going to sit there and let it happen."

He was right. I never would have agreed to do it without that push from Sirius. And in all honesty, having Quidditch back was the best thing that had happened to me this year. "You still used our talk against me, and that wasn't okay. Even if you did it for me, you don't get to use what happened to me against me. I understand where you are coming from, and honestly I am happy as hell to be playing again, but I can't go through the rest of this year worrying that you are going to force me to do things because of what I told you. That's not fair," I admonished him, looking at him firmly.

"I promise, never again. I want to be here for you, and I realize that by manipulating you, I was doing the opposite. But Jones, you are going to have to tell James. He's going to get suspicious when he catches on that we're not railing on each other any more."

"Oh please. You're not getting rid of me that easily. We may be friends now, but that doesn't mean I like you. We can keep it going until end of next year for sure," I joked, nudging him with my shoulder. He looked at me, not laughing, and I sighed. "I know that I have to tell him. I can't get away with avoiding Jase, being nice to you, and flinching every time he touches me forever. But give me a little more time. I'll think of a way to do it." Sirius nodded, and hesitantly threw an arm over my shoulders pulling me in tight. I didn't flinch away from him. Even though I had hated his guts five minutes ago, one conversation with him turned it all around. When had he become the kind of person who could make me go from anger to safety in just a few minutes time? When had Sirius Black become the one person who can make me feel absolutely crazy, but also completely safe? I thought back to our time as, I guess, friends. Had he always made me feel this way? I thought back to some of my first memories that involved Sirius…other than the times we had fought.

In first year, I cried the first two weeks because I missed my family. It was my first time away from Mom and Dad, and it meant I wouldn't get to see my brother Lewis until Christmas break. Lewis was 10 years older than me, and had graduated from Hogwarts three years before I came to Hogwarts. My Mom and Dad had Lewis right after graduating, and – as they always joked – he was enough of a terror that they waited until he was about to go to Hogwarts to have me. My family was my safe place, and it was the first time in my life that I was going to be separated from them. On my third night away from home, I had snuck out from the common room at night to sneak up to the owlery. I had wanted to send my parents a letter, insisting that they come pick me up and take me home with them. The problem was, when I got back to the Fat Lady Portrait after sending my letter, I found that she had also taken a late night stroll and was missing from her painting. I was outside for hours, crying, before anyone found me. Around 4AM, I heard footsteps and my head snapped up, looking for whoever was about to put me in detention for the foreseeable future. But it wasn't a Professor or Mr. Filch – it was Sirius. He had sat down next to me, not asked any questions, but handed me a bit of chocolate frog that he had in his pocket. As I nibbled on the chocolate, I realized that this was the first time anyone had ever comforted me when I was crying, other than my family. If this stranger was willing to give me something to make me feel better, someone else here would be willing to do the same. It was the first time I considered that I would be able to make friends here, to fit in. I never asked him where he had been that night, and he never asked me where I had been or why I was crying. But Sirius Black was the first person to make me feel safe at Hogwarts, even if he did then torture me for the next five years.

When I was sure I had failed my first Potions essay in third year, because I had been up all night with the flu the night before it was due, Sirius was the one who caused the distraction in class the next day. He had hexed Snape's cauldron, so his potion exploded all over our essays. Professor Slughorn hadn't been able to grade them, because every parchment that he touched caused his hands to swell. In fourth year, when I made a fool out of myself in front of Parker Davies by asking him to Hogsmead, Sirius had convinced James to knock him off his broom during the next Quidditch match. Now that I thought about it, Sirius had always quietly been there for me. Maybe he wasn't as bad as I thought he was.

I realized that I was still under Sirius's arm. He didn't look uncomfortable at all, in fact he was leaning back on the couch, letting my head rest against his shoulder, and looking rather pleased with the situation.

"I think I'm going to call it a night." I cleared my throat, awkwardly. I pulled myself out from under him, and got up. Sirius sat up, rubbing his own eyes.

"Probably a good idea. Lots of homework to do tomorrow before classes resume Monday," Sirius admitted. He hated admitting that he cared about his grades, just as much as Lily, if not more. He wanted to be an auror, and although he thought nobody noticed how hard he was working to get the grades to do so, I had noticed him working harder than ever this year.

"Want to meet in the library tomorrow? I could really use your help understanding the euphoria charm that Flitwick assigned us," I asked tentatively. Were we there yet?

"Count on it," Sirius smiled at me. We agreed on a time to meet, and I walked towards the girl's staircase, as he walked towards the boy's dormitories.

"Hey Jones," Sirius called after me. I turned to look at him, with a questioning look on my face. "You and I both know that one day, I'll be next to Lily at a Puddlemere United game, wearing a Jones jersey." I was touched that he believed in me so much. He and James both knew that making it to the professional league had always been a pipe dream for me – I wouldn't have the experience when I graduated that I would need to play professionally. But that he would support my dream, even over his best friend! I was starting to think that I really could get along with Sirius when he spoke again, shattering that illusion.

"But we also know you'd look a lot better with my name on your back." He turned and walked up the staircase, like he had just said nothing at all. I realized that the look I had noticed on him when I had come downstairs wearing James's jersey had been jealousy. And of course I wouldn't have recognized it before, because Sirius had never been jealous of a girl before – he was notorious for using and losing a new girl a week. Now he was suddenly jealous of me and James, who he knew I shared an almost sibling-like relationship with?

I stared as his retreating back, my mind reeling. I really couldn't keep up with Sirius at all recently – he was being sweet, kind, flirty, and comforting. I don't know if this summer had changed him completely, or if he had always been this way and I had ignored it because it was easier to hate him than to like him. Even I couldn't deny it any longer - Sirius was not he person I thought he was, and he was continuing to surprise me every day. I had to be careful though. I couldn't let Sirius think that we would ever be more than friends. After Jase, I couldn't ever be with anyone again. I could barely open up to Sirius as a newfound friend, so I definitely couldn't let it get to be more than that.

I walked upstairs and scolded myself. Sirius flirted with everyone, and I shouldn't let myself think that I was special. He would get over it within the week when he realizes I'm not showing interest back. But then again, I hadn't seen him flirt with anyone all year – ugh, he was being way too confusing lately. I found myself falling to sleep, once again thinking, "Sirius Black is going to be the death of me."