October 17th, 1976
"It's going to be okay, Addison." Sirius assured me, my hand grasping his so tightly that he was wincing in pain. "I promise, that everything is going to be alright. I'm here with you, and James is going to be there for you too."
I nodded, swallowing the lump that had formed in my throat. We were standing outside the portrait of the bowl of fruit, Sirius had already tickled the pear, and all that was left was for me to turn the handle and walk inside. James was already inside, according to the map that Sirius was holding. Sirius had tracked me down using the map, and had dragged me down here by wand point in order to get me to come. Sirius did not like my explanation that I was hiding from Parker Davies in the astronomy section of the library, because, as he clearly showed me, Davies had been on the Quidditch Pitch all day practicing with the Ravenclaw team. That damn map was always giving me away, when all I was trying to do was hide from my problems.
"Addison." Sirius tugged on my hand, forcing me to turn and face him. He was looking into my eyes with sincerity, his gray eyes clear and bright. "I promise you that you can do this. Take a deep breath." He instructed. I did, breathing in heavily.
"Now exhale." I did, letting the air slowly out through my nose. I felt my heart rate decrease, and he nodded in satisfaction. I nodded, determined, reached out and turned the handle. I stepped into the kitchens, noticing immediately that the house elves had all popped over to the portrait to see who had entered.
"Ms. Jones!" A small, pink-eared elf came bobbing through the sea of house elves. "I've missed you Ms. Jones! What can I get you! Tea? Cookies? Milk? I'll get it all for you! Mr. Potter is already here, in your usual spot," Posey, the house elf I had first met as a first year, practically pushed me forward, glaring at all of the other elves as if claiming me as her own.
"And, Mr. Black! I will get you some of your favorite treacle tart!" Posey continued, patting Sirius affectionately on the arm.
"You know Posey?" I asked, incredulously. I knew that Sirius sometimes snuck downstairs to get provisions for our parties, but I never knew that he knew Posey.
"I get around," He said with a shrug. "Thank you, Posey, but we won't need anything this time. But can you please ask that we get some privacy? We are going to have a very serious conversation, and I don't want to be overheard."
"Of course, Mr. Black. I will keep the other elves back with my own two hands," Posey promised, holding up her tiny hands in fists.
"Thank you, Posey."
I was pushed all the way to the back of the kitchens by Posey, to the spot where James was already sitting, tucking in to a large plate of pastries and biscuits. He looked up when he heard me coming, cookies falling out of his mouth, but he almost choked when he saw Sirius and I together.
"Hey, Prongs." Sirius said casually, sliding in across from James and thumping him on the back. James coughed up the bit of cookie that had lodged in his throat, and hastily took a sip of tea.
"Hey Padfoot. Addie. What's going on?" James asked slowly, looking scared.
"I have to talk to you about something James, and I brought Sirius as moral support." I said, speaking for the first time. I slid in next to Sirius, sitting closer to him than I probably should have, but I needed to feel his presence to remind myself that he was there for me.
"Oh merlin. This is it. This is it! You're going to admit to me that you WERE sleeping with him last night." James exclaimed, his face flushing in anger again.
"What? No Prongs, that's not at all what this is about. We weren't sleeping together," Sirius said, putting his hands up to portray his innocence.
"And I'm going to have to kill my best friend, and then my other best friend is going to be mad at me, but I'm mad at her because she lied to me, and this is all going to hurt so much because I love them both so much…" James ignored Sirius, going off on his own little rant.
"James, I didn't lie to you. Sirius and I are not sleeping together. And even if we were, it would really be none of your business and you certainly wouldn't have a right to be upset," I signed in exasperation. Sirius glanced at me, confusion in his eyes, but I ignored him. I needed James to calm down so I could tell him about Jase.
"And WHAT am I going to do if you two break up? Whose side am I going to take? Oh Merlin, I can't pick a side. Padfoot or Addie? Padfoot or Addie? I DON'T KNOW!" James was still panicking, Sirius looked like he wanted to hit James, and I was done with James making this about him.
"JAMES." I shrieked. James immediately shut up, and turned to me, mouth open. "Jase raped me." I continued quickly. As the breath left my body with the words following, I felt a giant weight lift off of my chest.
"Oh." James said, his mouth closing and his brows furrowing. I don't know what response I was expecting, but "Oh," was definitely not it. I started to feel the panic come back. Was James about to yell at me? Was he going to call me a slut? Sirius grabbed my hand, which had been resting on top of the table. James's eyes followed the motion, and his eyes furrowed even more.
"But why…what? When did this happen? Why is Padfoot here? What is going on?" James began slowly, but started getting animated towards the end, as he got more and more confused. He was clearly working through his thought process out loud, and I tried to come up with a reasonable explanation, but my brain couldn't seem to come up with simple sentences.
"I…." I trailed off. I couldn't put in to words what I know needed to be said.
"Addison told me because I cornered her in the common room at the start of term. She had been acting weird, well…weirder than normal. I told her about living with you, Prongs. And she told me about Jase. It just kind of happened, but I promised her that I would be here to support her whenever she decided to tell you. She's been really nervous about it, so if you could stop acting like a tosser, that'd be great," Sirius, thankfully, stepped in for me. He gave my hand a comforting squeeze, his eyes still trained of James. James seemed to snap out of whatever confusion he was feeling, and a bashful, embarrassed look crossed his face. He turned towards me fully, and made to reach for the hand that Sirius wasn't holding. I flinched violently, and pulled my hand away from him. I leaned closer to Sirius, and he put his arm around me comfortingly.
"I'm sorry, I won't try to touch you," James said, his hand still reaching halfway across the table. If he was upset that I wouldn't let him touch me, while I had practically jumped into Sirius's lap, he didn't show it. "Addison, I am so sorry that this happened to you, and that I have been such a self-absorbed wanker that I didn't even realize what was happening."
"It's okay, James. I know this year has been so great for you with being Quidditch captain, and finally getting Lily to notice you. But this year has been terrible for me, and I really needed my best friend." I said, starting to get choked up. Sirius's hand was absentmindedly drawing small circles on my shoulder, and the innocent touch was so comforting.
"No, that's no excuse. I should have noticed that something was wrong. You should never feel like you can't tell me something." James shook his head. "Does this explain why you were in our dorm this morning?"
"Yes. Jase cornered me at the party last night and said some disgusting things to me. Sirius stood up to him for me, and then brought me upstairs to calm down." I admitted.
"So, you're telling me that after that bastard dared to touch you, he came back and harassed you? He doesn't get it, does he? I'm going to kill him now." James said in a deadly voice. He got up, and stormed out of the kitchens. I froze for a second too long, unable to process what James was going to do. It wasn't until I realized that Sirius was pushing me, trying to get me up off the bench that I moved.
"Come on, Kitten, we need to stop him before he hurts himself." Sirius said, pulling me behind him as he ran from the kitchens.
"Damn, he runs fast when motivated," Sirius cursed, consulting the map. James had already made it halfway back to the common room, which was quite the feat considering he had only left a few moments before us. I noticed that Jase was sitting in the common room; so James had made a correct assumption and was about to cause a scene.
"We need to stop him." I grabbed Sirius's hand and started sprinting, taking every shortcut that I knew.
"Wait, wait, Addie this way is faster," Sirius pulled on my hand, pulling me behind a tapestry that took us up three floors. Before I knew it, we were outside of the Fat Lady Portrait, and I was terrified.
"What do you think we're going to walk in to?" I asked nervously, stopping dead. But Sirius wasn't listening to me, had already tersely given the password to the Fat Lady, and was barreling in through the portrait hole. I followed tentatively, dreading what I was going to find.
It was worse than I had imagined. Sirius had made it to James already, and was pulling him off of Jase, whose entire face was bloodied. James was accenting every punch with "Stay the fuck away from her,".
"You don't ever fuckinh touch her again, do you hear me?" James screamed at Jase, who was on the floor cowering. "You do not think about her, you do not look at her, you do not speak her name," He had gotten down on his knees now, grabbed Jase by his collar and was screaming in his face.
"Prongs, mate, let up. He gets it. You're making a scene," Sirius had James's robes bunched up in his hands, and was trying to get James up off the ground. I looked around the common room, and noticed for the first time that basically the entire house was standing around the edges of the room watching what was going on. My face flushed, and tears started to form in my eyes, as I realized that everyone was going to know that this fight was over me.
"Look, mate, why would I ever want to go near a slut like her anyway?" Jase laughed from the ground, blood pouring from his broken nose down into his mouth. He spit blood onto the floor, "She's Black's whore now. Good luck with her, she's an awful shag."
Before I could react, Sirius had dropped James's robes and was pummeling any inch of Jase he could reach. James, free from the little restraint Sirius had been inflicting on him, was holding Jase's arms back to make it easier for Sirius.
"Sirius. Sirius. SIRIUS!" I screamed, finally finding my voice. "Stop! Please." I begged. I wanted the attention to be on anyone but me. I wanted everyone to forget that Jase had just let slip that we had sex. I wanted everyone to forget that I was a whore. They were all going to think that I had been sleeping with Jase and Sirius, especially given Sirius's reaction to Jase's taunt.
"He doesn't get to just get away with saying something like that about you!" James said, incredulously.
"Stop. I mean it." I demanded, rushing forward to try to pull Sirius up.
"Oh, babe, coming to defend me?" Jase jeered at me. I wanted to vomit then and there, having Jase call me a pet name made my skin crawl.
"You are nothing to me. I don't want James or Sirius to get in trouble. It has nothing to do with you, you piece of shit." I hissed back at him, trying and failing to get Sirius up.
"I thought I told you that you were never to speak to her again?" James said in an enraged voice. He was about to start punching Jase again when a shriek echoed throughout the common room.
"What the hell is going on here?" Lily demanded, having just walked into the common room from the portrait hole.
"Potter! Black! What the hell do you think you are doing? 50 points from Gryffindor, and a detention for each of you! I will be reporting this to Professor McGonagall in the morning." She had come rushing over to the group of four in the center of the common room, her wand out and held steady. "Everyone, out! Don't you all have something better to do than watch this?" The crowd began to disperse now that a Prefect had stepped in, until the common room was basically empty. Nobody wanted to stick around for the screaming match that was sure to ensue.
"Lennox, help Whitmore to the hospital wing." Lily demanded, looking over her shoulder at Chris Lennox, one of Jase's friends, with her wand still pointed at James and Sirius. The pair scurried away, Jase leaning heavily on Chris's shoulder.
"Lily, you don't understa…." James began, but Lily whipped her head back around to glare at him, her red hair flowing viciously behind her.
"Don't start with me Potter. I thought you had changed! I thought you were growing up, becoming a better man. But you are still just an immature prat who thinks with his fists and barely has two brain cells to rub together." Lily had tears in her eyes, but her voice was unwavering. "Come on, Addison, let's go."
"Give me a minute, Lil. I'll be up in a minute. I just want to talk to these two for a second." I said, trying to process what emotion I should be feeling. At the moment, all I felt was numb terror. I know I should feel something…anger, embarrassment, relief, even gratitude? But I didn't feel anything.
"Fine." She huffed, before storming up the girl's dormitory staircase, her read hair following her like a flame. James and Sirius were pulling themselves up off the ground. James had a few scratches on his face, obviously from before we had gotten back to the common room, since Jase had been on the ground unable to fight back by the time we got back. Sirius was breathing hard, but looked unharmed.
"James, are you okay? Do you need me to heal any of those scratches?" I asked, deciding to get the niceties out of the way.
"No, I'm okay." James said, looking heartbroken. I took a deep breath and decided to address him first.
"Look, James. I appreciate that you felt like you needed to protect me. But you don't get to decide what I need from you. I get to tell you what I need from you. And what I needed was for you to sit and listen to me, and tell me that you loved me and that everything was going to be okay. What I didn't need was for you to come in here, make a scene, and let everyone in Hogwarts know that something happened between me and Jase!" I had tried to remain calm, but I was nearly yelling towards the end of my rant. I guess I had decided on anger.
"And you!" I spun around on Sirius, "You knew better. You knew how upset I was about all of this, and how the last thing I wanted was for anyone to find out and think I was a slut. And what do you think everyone is going to think now that you reacted violently to Jase making an insinuation about us? Everyone is going to think I fucked Jase and then turned around and immediately fucked you. This is exactly what I didn't want. And I know. I know that you were both just trying to protect me, but neither of you thought about what I want. You acted selfishly, and rashly, and I am the one who is going to pay the price. Not you. So I hope when everyone starts gossiping about me, and making comments to me, and acting horribly to me, that you understand that you are the ones who did this to me. Not Jase." I finished, embracing that I was in fact angry at the both of them.
"But Addiso…." Sirius began.
"No, Black. No buts. Neither of you have any idea what I am going through. But you both just made it a hell of a lot more difficult for me to forget what happened and move on. I'm disappointed in you both, and I'm going to bed. I'm not going to ignore you, or punish you. But I want you to know that the next several weeks are going to be awful for me, and you two are the reason why. Goodnight." On that note, I turned away from the two boys that were supposed to protect me, and I walked away.
