And This Is How I Died.

Hauling my bag onto my shoulder I checked my timetable to see what lesson was up next.

Okay, okay, so I had been back at Hogwarts nearly 3 months and I still didn't know where I needed to be and at what time.

I had always liked to think of myself as a pretty good student, but these days it was enough of an assault course just trying to make it through each day, without having to actually learn as well.

The last time I had tried to spend some time studying in the library, James had decided to turn up dressed as the librarian for goodness sake.

I mean, honestly, that level of distraction was just unfair.

"Defence Against the Dark Arts," I read aloud from my folded sheet. "Right."

I decided that this lesson would commence the turning over of a new leaf, and I would force myself to give the teacher my whole-hearted concentration.

I would learn with reckless abandon.

.o.

Heading into the DADA classroom I shoved my bag and coat into one of the pigeon holes and went to take my usual seat next to Marlene.

As an inherently chatty person, Marlene possibly wasn't the best choice of companion if one wanted to 'learn with reckless abandon', but I tried not to be put off by the thought.

"Cheryl!" she greeted as soon as she noticed me. "Have you heard the news?"

I plopped myself on my stool and shook my head to let her know that I had not heard any news. Nothing exciting enough to warrant the slightly manic expression on her face anyway.

"Lily and James are together!" she exclaimed, no longer able to hold it in.

My mouth hung open at the information.

"Are you sure?" was all I could think to say.

"Yes! Dorcas saw them snogging down behind the gamekeeper's hut the other day."

I felt a laugh erupt from my throat, a mixture of nerves and disbelief. A sudden thought occurred to me.

"What was Dorcas doing down there?"

Marlene waved a careless hand as if the logistics weren't important.

"I dunno," she said, "harvesting some kind of fruit or something."

"Do they know that she saw them?" I asked.

Marlene looked slightly guilty at this question.

"Technically?" she said, "No."

But before I could pass judgement on that fact, she added quickly, "But if it was such a secret then they shouldn't have done it where everyone could see."

My eyebrows pulled together.

"I'm not sure that behind the gamekeeper's hut really classifies as somewhere 'everyone can see'," I said doubtfully.

The hut was situated right at the edge of the grounds, away from all normal signs of student life.

It made my blood run cold. If someone had seen James and Lily in their secluded hiding place, then how many more people might have seen Sirius and me in our spot just outside the main furrow fair of the great hall.

"What's up with you?" Marlene asked, eyeing the new expression of pure terror on my face.

"Nothing," I said aa little too quickly.

This did not help my case. Marlene stared at me shrewdly.

"You seem… different," she observed, really looking me now.

"In what way?" I asked carefully.

Surely she couldn't tell I'd had my first kiss just from the my expression?

Then again, this was Marlene. She probably had some kind of sixth sense for sources of gossip.

"You're seeing someone, aren't you?" she asked, a wide grin taking over her face. She shoved my arm. "You sly dog!"

Before I could assure her that I was still very much boyfriend-less, Professor Mison entered the room.

I could have kissed him for providing the much needed distraction, though considering the fact that he was both 6ft 2 and a bit of a fox -for a teacher, of course- that wasn't really saying too much.

"Good afternoon, class," he called, taking his jacket off to reveal a pleasantly slim-fitting shirt. I had to pull my eyes away from the glorious sight.

Marlene reached over and pretended to wipe drool from my chin with a laugh. "Put your tongue back in," she told me.

Professor Mison's blue eyes looked over at us. "Er, ladies, now is the time for listening, please."

Marlene smirked at him. "Yes, sir," she sang happily, giving me a nudge underneath the table.

I will listen in class. I will listen in class. I will listen in class. I repeated the words in my head like a mantra.

"We have an exciting lesson ahead of us," Professor Mison addressed us, and with a swish of his wand a bright burst of light galloped out of the end.

"The Patronus," he smiled, watching his white, ghostly stallion canter around the room, trotting gracefully over the students' heads.

"Useful when battling the unlikely foe of a Dementor and also, incidentally, when studying for your N.E.W.T.s exams. Take it from me, this charm will crop up."

.o.

"Expecto Patronum!" Marlene called after we had got into pairs to practise the spell.

A wisp of smoke issued from the end of her wand. "Argh, this is so annoying, why won't it work?"

"Keep trying," I told her, though I was having just as much of a struggle with it as she was.

A few of the others in our class had already managed to crack it. There was a weasel, a pot-bellied pig and two different types of dog running ethereally around the ceiling.

It wasn't the charm that was the hardest part as much as thinking of a happy enough memory.

I had chosen one from when I was a kid – playing at the ice skating rink with my friends. Judging from the weak puffs of Patronus it produced, it was obviously not good enough.

"So when are you going to tell me who you're dating?" Marlene asked between her 'expecto patronum's.

"I'm not dating anyone," I said tiredly, moving onto a memory of my first experience at a local funfair riding the Waltzers and pointing my wand. "Expecto Patronum."

That didn't work either.

Marlene stopped what she was doing and looked at me. "You can trust me, Cheryl, I wouldn't tell anyone."

"Hmm," I murmured doubtfully.

She looked genuinely hurt at this.

"Hey, I wouldn't. If you asked me to keep it a secret, I wouldn't tell a soul. Now pleeeease," she begged, "teeell meeee."

I sighed. She was clearly not going to let it drop.

"I kissed someone," I told her reluctantly. "Or, they kissed me. But we're not dating, I wasn't lying about that."

It was Marlene's turn to have her jaw drop. She let out a loud squeal of delight on my behalf.

"Who was it?" she wanted to know immediately. "What was it like? Tongues or no tongues?"

I thought back to the way Sirius's body had leant over me. How his touch had somehow managed to make my insides squirm. Not with disgust like it used to, but with... Something I didn't recognise.

But whatever it had been, the look in his eyes when we parted had been enough to reassure me that he had felt it too. If only in that moment.

Marlene's elbow jabbed into my side, interrupting my train of thought.

"Mison's coming over," she hissed.

Sure enough the Professor was approaching our table to curb our talking.

I flourished my wand quickly to make it look like we were working. "Expecto Patronum," I called.

Professor Mison halted mid-step at the unmistakable sight of the creature that ran from my wand, circling him. If his eyebrows rose any higher they would have had to claim squatter's rights in his hairline.

"Well done, Cheryl!" he cried, restarting his walk to our side, clearly surprised that I had managed it. "And here I was ready to tell you two off for chatting. Ten points to Gryffindor for surprising an increasingly jaded professor."

Marlene grinned. "Do I get ten points too?" she asked. "For the moral support I provided?"

Mison laughed. "That would be a no." He turned back to me. "What happy memory were you thinking of when you conjured it?" he asked.

My smile froze on my face.

"She was thinking of her new boyfriend," Marlene grinned mischievously.

"Shut up," I warned her with what I hoped was a deathly stare.

But both Marlene and the Professor seemed to find it funny.

"If that's the case he's obviously a keeper," he joked good-naturedly.

"What is it anyway?" Marlene asked, watching my Patronus continue to leap around us.

"A lynx, I believe," Mison replied.

For the first time in a long time I felt a genuine smile appear on my face at something I had done in class.

The lynx really was beautiful, and I had actually managed to produce it. Perhaps things really were looking up academically.

Professor Mison spotted another successful caster of the charm on the opposite side of the room and left to go and congratulate them.

"It was Sirius, wasn't it?" Marlene asked me when he was gone. "The boy who you kissed." Her expression was thoughtful. I found I could not openly lie to her.

Instead I said nothing.

She took my silence as assent. "After the way the two of you were at his birthday it was obvious there something going on."

"You can't tell anyone," I told her.

She nodded. "I won't. But you know it's bound to come out sooner or later."

"I vote for later," I said.

A slow grin crept across her face.

"So…" she said slyly, "you never answered my question."

"What question?"

"Were there tongues or no tongues?"

I felt my mouth twitch despite myself. "None of your business."

She shrugged her shoulders, "I'll just ask Sirius."

I frowned hard.

"Joking, joking," she laughed.

.o.

"James and Lily kissing in a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G. First comes love, then comes marriage. Then comes a baby in a baby's carriag-"

"Oh grow up!" Lily exclaimed, glaring at the sixth year ginger haired boy who had accosted us on our way to the library that evening.

I gave her a look of great empathy. It seemed Marlene and Dorcas were no longer the only ones who knew about their not so secret tryst by the gamekeeper's hut.

"Before you say anything, yes I know he can be insufferable and a bully, and I'm probably incredibly stupid for thinking he's changed," she paused to give me a beseeching look, "but, I really do think he's changed."

I pressed my lips together. At any other time I would have seen her getting together with Potter as a betrayal, considering how many years he and the Marauders had spent torturing me. But with all that had happened lately I felt like I didn't really have a leg to stand on.

"I think he has too," I replied honestly.

Lily looked shocked. "You do?"

We had approached the entrance to the library, and I reached forward to pull open the stained glass door, gesturing for her to go first.

"I do," I said.

A warm smile of relief broke out across Lily's face as she crossed the threshold.

Once inside, she lowered her voice in line with Madam Pince's strict rules, "You have no idea how much it means to hear you say that considering your past with them," she said. "If even you feel like he's changed, then perhaps I'm making the right decision."

"What decision?" I asked, walking over to place my books down on a free table in the corner of the room.

"I've agreed to go on a date with him," she admitted.

I tried to hide my surprise.

"Oh really?"

"Just as a trial," she added hurriedly.

"I'm happy for you," I said. It was half true; if it was going to be a long-term thing it would take some getting used to.

Seeming appeased by my answer, she left to approach a nearby bookshelf in search of a book for History of Magic.

I pulled out my Charms homework and began to work furiously, trying to clear my mind of periphery distractions. I had a lot of catching up to do.

When she returned I looked up to find her struggling with a particularly dirty looking tome, dropping it heavily onto the table across from me. A cloud of dust exploded into our faces.

Coughing and wafting our arms around, we did not hear or see the approach of the pallid looking boy until he was right on top of us.

As the dust parted, his ghostly face emerged in the centre of it.

"Severus," Lily spluttered, double taking at him.

"I heard about you and Potter," he said in a quiet voice.

Lily's face went from surprised to indignant.

"Is that right?" she asked, having to reign the volume of her voice in.

"I thought you were better than that," he said. "I thought I knew you."

Lily's green eyes filled with anger and disappointment as she peered back at him. When she spoke again her voice was measured. Calmer.

"I thought I knew you too, Severus," she replied. "Once upon a time. But people change." She looked at him pointedly as she said the next part, "Sometimes not for the best."

Snape looked stricken.

"Lily, please, I've apologised for calling you that. I didn't mean it. Potter brings out the worst in everyone."

I didn't understand what he could mean.

She shook her head dismissively.

"I might have been able to forgive you calling me a Mudblood, eventually," she said. "But hanging around with Death Eaters? Openly showing your disdain for Muggles? It's something I could never accept."

"What's going on?" James's voice behind him made Severus physically jump; it was as if he had appeared from nowhere.

I looked around, but he was apparently on his own, just happening to be passing by at the right time.

He looked at Snape with his arms folded across his body, his tall, broad figure making the Slytherin look sickly and frail in comparison.

Snape scowled as if dying to give Potter a mouthful in reply, but he knew his short-comings just as well as the rest of did.

James would've annihilated him in both wand and physical combat.

"Severus was just leaving," Lily said firmly, furthering Snape's hopeless expression.

He stood for a moment looking torn, not wanting to leave Lily while she was still angry at him, but eventually seemed to decide it would be best to just go.

"I'll talk to you later, Lily," he muttered, hurrying from the room with his head down.

James glared at him menacingly as he passed, as if itching to reach for his wand, but he cleverly kept himself in check.

Once Snape was out of sight, Lily seemed to notice Potter's restraint, rewarding him a small smile.

"Would you like to sit with us?" she asked him, pulling out her own chair.

At first he looked surprised by the offer, as if he was still getting used to their burgeoning relationship, but he quickly collected himself, taking the seat next to hers.

It was only then that he seemed to realise I was there, sitting opposite watching him.

"Don't worry, I'm leaving," I told him, not wanting to play gooseberry to them.

To my great shock, he gave me a coy grin in reply.

"Cheers," he muttered under his breath.

"I'm heading off," I told Lily as I gathered up my books. Just like James, she seemed quietly –and somewhat surprisingly- grateful to be left alone with him.

Now that my time in the library had been thwarted, I decided to head back to find a table in the common room rather than abandoning my study altogether.

I would pass my N.E.W.T.s even if I had to drag myself kicking and screaming through gigantic piles of books.

.o.

Deciding to take the long way around, I headed through the Clock Tower courtyard to get some fresh air.

It had always been one of my favourite areas to find sanctuary in when I was at Hogwarts the last time, what with the comforting gushing of the antique fountain set right in the middle.

It had gone dark ages ago due to the winter hours, but there were flame torches dotted around the eaves of the courtyard corridor walls to light the way.

Pausing to look over at the statues of eagles that were perched around the base of the fountain, as though they were keeping a watchful eye out, I thought how nice it would've been to get my books out there and then, but the cold prevented it if nothing else.

Instead of heading back up to the common room to study as I should have done, I decided to allow myself a quick stroll around another area of the grounds.

I was very aware that I was procrastinating, but a strange part of me wanted to go back to the shadowy alcove in which I had first met the big black dog.

It had chased me down intent on Merlin knew what, managing to haunt my nightmares for weeks afterwards, but now I knew it had been Sirius all along it seemed like it was time to put any leftover fear to bed. To make a fresh start.

I had to go back and face it.

I would study afterwards, I promised myself vehemently. I needed this.

.o.

"You can do this," I muttered to myself, walking resolutely across the dark, grassy grounds. "The full moon isn't until next month. There is nothing out here."

With no torches to guide my way this time, I struggled to see where I was going, led purely by the small light at the tip of my wand.

There was a pile of what looked like dog waste to my immediate left and I side-stepped it quickly, hoping for everyone's sake that it was in fact just a pile of leaves.

"Please don't let that have been Black," I murmured to myself with a disgusted shudder.

The last time the dog had chased me I had been on my way to meet Anthony Javerhops. His large frame had been a welcome sight after the terror of my ordeal. It was odd how things had shifted on their head since that day.

It took me a few minutes of fast-paced walking to reach the area of the grounds I'd been looking for; the place where the enormous jutting walls of the castle cast everything underneath them into relentless darkness.

Stopping at the precipice of the blackened area, I pushed myself to stand still and face it head on.

I'm not really sure what I expected to happen other than the nothingness I was greeted with, but I still felt a rush of pride that I'd managed to do it. This would surely mean the end of my haunting dreams showing sinister glowing eyes lurking in the shadows waiting for me.

At first I thought the rumbling growl that echoed through the night was just a leftover part of my overactive imagination. But then the familiar glowing eyes lit up directly in front of me.

Right in the midst of the area I had been staring into.

"Sirius," I said softly, praying with all my might that the eyes belonged to him and it was all just a stupid trick.

Or maybe that Padfoot had seen me and found himself unable to resist his animal instincts to chase me out of his territory.

Or, said a quieter voice, maybe this wasn't Sirius at all.

.o.

"Sirius, please," I said again. "You're scaring me."

If he realised how frightened he was making me, I hoped he might back down.

Still, the eyes came towards me, the body masked by the pitch black of its surroundings. The rumbling growl had started to escalate into sporadic snarling.

I knew I would have to run. He was leaving me with no choice. I couldn't take the risk.

Without another thought, I turned on my heel and prepared to sprint away as fast as my feet would take me.

I had taken two blind steps before I collided with a tall slab of rock.

Knocked back off my feet, my backside crashed onto the cold, hard ground, shunting a force up the length of my spine that was so strong I feared I would be paralysed.

I peered up at the thing I had run into, only to find it leaning down towards me, offering me its hand.

I squinted my slightly blurry eyes, trying to see clearly.

"Are you okay?" it asked.

"You followed me," I realised, my vision finally showing me the real person I had collided with.

Anthony Javerhop's brows knitted together as he took a step towards me.

Before I could push myself back, he had forced his huge arms underneath mine and lifted me off the floor like a rag doll until I had righted my footing.

Another snarl, much closer this time, came from just behind me.

Anthony uttered a curse word.

"What the hell is that?" he asked, his face as horrified as mine as we looked over at the big, black beast closing in on us.

Pushing back on its haunches, it prepared to launch itself at us.

I looked back at Anthony, hoping he might offer some protection considering he was roughly the same size as the beast. But when I did I saw that he was gone.

He had bolted and left me to face it alone.

The dog was now too close for me to attempt to do the same.

"Sirius, if this is you please stop," I tried again.

The black dog did not seem able, or willing, to understand me.

Thrusting its powerful legs upwards, it took a giant leap towards me, and I found myself knocked backwards onto the floor for a second time.

The last thing I saw was the flash of impossibly long canine teeth, aiming directly for my neck.

And this was how I died.