Change of Heart
By Tempest Break
Disclaimer: There's a list of all the people I own at the end of this chapter.
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Chapter Twenty-Nine: Comings and Goings in the Library
Sirius was upset. He wasn't sad; he wasn't pissed off; he was upset. It had been three weeks since the Quidditch match and Colleen had barely said a word to him. At least a serious word. And though Sirius hated to admit that it bothered him, there had been a definite deficit of touching and kissing and… sexing.
"GRARGH!" Sirius burst out, pounding his fist on the table so hard that the inkpot jumped and spilled over the lacquer of the library table. He ignored the spreading blackness and buried his face in his hands.
Remus was not startled by Sirius's outburst. He quietly whispered, "Tergeo!" to siphon the ink off the table and looked at his friend sympathetically. Asking what was wrong would only send Sirius into a frenzy, so Remus remained silent, only eyeing him from behind his Arithmancy homework.
"It wouldn't be so bad if she weren't so bloody cheerful all the time," muttered Sirius, not looking at Remus.
Remus stayed quiet.
"But she's always making jokes," continued Sirius, his voice muffled by his hands. "That's what really gets to me. And she's so goddamn nice all the time. To everyone. Everyone. Even that one kid who ran into her. Sayers." He groaned. "It's not fair."
Remus nodded sympathetically, continuing the sums of his Arithmancy.
"I mean, don't you think there's something wrong, Remus?" he asked, fixing his friend with a deep gaze that Remus felt very bad about avoiding. "Don't you?"
Remus finally looked up at Sirius and met such a doleful stare that any words he could have said died in his throat, Instead, he only gave Sirius a sympathetic shrug. Sirius returned to burying his face in his arms.
The sound of footsteps behind Sirius drew Remus's attention. It was Colleen and someone else – a familiar Hufflepuff boy with black hair and a scar on his left cheek.
Colleen's and Remus's eyes met, and then Colleen noticed Sirius, whose back was to her. She tugged on the Hufflepuff's sleeve and pulled him out of sight behind the bookshelves.
Remus stared after them for a moment and then looked back at Sirius, whose hands had covered his face the entire time. He hadn't noticed at all.
Remus silently went back to his Arithmancy homework.
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Colleen found the most secluded table in the library and flung her bag onto it with a guilty. Not like they were doing anything bad, she told herself. Just studying for the upcoming Divination final. Nothing really bad.
Just that your boyfriend is back there and has no idea you're with another boy. Or that you're pregnant with his baby and have been ignoring him for the last three weeks. Yeah, you're a great person.
I loathe myself.
She put her bag down on the library table and pulled out the Divination textbook. She sat down across the table from Bergen and flipped the book open to the right page. They were learning about dowsing rods.
"Okay, so, I'll quiz you about these," she said. "Sound good?"
"Sure," he replied easily.
"Alright. What were the ancient uses for – ?" She trailed off. Something was brushing her foot. She glanced quickly at Bergen, but he seemed to be listening intently to what she was asking. She shrugged it off. "Ancient uses for dowsing rods?" she finished.
"Uhm, searching for underground water," said Bergen.
"And…" Colleen prompted.
"And… determining the sex of unborn children?"
"Yes, and?"
He shrugged and laughed. "I'm out."
"And finding unmarked graves." She shook her head. "Always knew Divination was spooky stuff."
"Bergen," he agreed, flipping his wand.
"You're getting awfully good at that," she remarked.
"Yeah, you think?" He grinned and leaned across the table. "You think I'm good with my wand, O'Brian?"
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, you must get an awful lot of time alone with it."
He laughed again. "You know, you're pretty funny for a girl."
"Aww, how touching! Pardon me while I blush with pleasure."
"Yeah, like that," he said, nodding. "You're sharp. I like it."
"Mm-hmm, and so does my boyfriend. Now let's put away our sexism and wand innuendoes and focus, shall we?" Again something brushed her, this time higher up on her leg. She ignored it. "What are the common rod shapes for water source dowsing?"
"Y-shaped or L-shaped."
"Right." Whatever it was slid further up her leg. Colleen shifted in her seat uncomfortably, crossing one leg over another. "So!" she shouted a little too loudly. "Since you seem confident in dowsing, why don't you quiz me?" She started to pass him the book.
Bergen grabbed her hand. She jumped. "O'Brian."
"Hm?" She looked up at him nervously.
He stared at her seriously. "I want you."
"Huh?"
And before she could do anything else, he had grabbed her at the nape of the neck and kissed her.
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"Do you think she's cheating on me?" Sirius asked miserably of Remus.
The image of Colleen and the Hufflepuff boy flashed in front of Remus's eyes. He tried to push it away by doing his Arithmancy homework, but as soon as he looked into his best friend's desolate gray eyes, it was all he could see.
"I don't think Colleen's that kind of girl," he said through his teeth. But, he reasoned, he didn't know anything for sure. In fact, he was pretty certain Colleen wouldn't let anything happen between her and that scar-faced Hufflepuff.
For Sirius's sake, he hoped she wouldn't.
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Colleen shoved him off of her, breathing heavily – angrily. "Just what do you think you're doing?" she demanded shrilly. She hated the tone of her voice, but she was too upset to rein it in. "I have a boyfriend!"
"But you don't love him, do you?" Bergen asked, unruffled.
Colleen was taken horribly aback. "What!?" she nearly shrieked.
"Do you love him?" he inquired again.
"Oh, right, as if what you're looking for is true love, you perv," she spat.
He shrugged. "If you love him, it's cheating. If you don't, it's not."
Colleen stared at him in disgust. "I'll ignore your obviously skewed morals long enough to kick your oh-so-important 'wand,' and your crystal balls, too, if you don't get out of my face right now."
"All right, all right, I'm going." He held up his hands in a gesture of peace. "I'll leave you and your dearest alone, okay?"
"You'd better, if you know what's good for you," she growled.
"Hey, would you mind quieting it down over there?" called a voice from the next table over. A familiar head popped around the bookshelf. Bright, long-lashed eyes blinked at the two students.
"Lela," said Bergen in surprise, standing from his chair.
"Dennie," replied Lela Lyndall, just as shocked. She ran her fingers through her blonde hair, rumpling it just enough for it to fall in waves around her thin face. She glanced at Colleen distastefully and then looked back to Bergen. "What are you doing here?"
"He was just leaving," Colleen said, glaring at him. "And so was I."
"O'Brian – " Bergen began.
"Goodbye, Bergen," she said firmly. "'Bye, Lyndall." She brushed past the purple-eyed blonde and bustled out of the library.
Once she had gotten what she deemed a safe distance away from the library and the horrible awkwardness of it, she sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. Bergen's question echoed in her ears.
Did she love Sirius? Had she ever? She sighed. One thing was for sure. If she loved him, she would tell him about – this. Her fingers gripped her abdomen tightly. She almost wished she could just tear out her ovaries and be done with it all.
"This is a wonderful way to end my school career," she muttered.
"Coincidence?" came a cheerful voice from the hallway. "I think not!"
Colleen turned and found with delight that her greeter was Michael Sayers. He was with a few of his fellow third years, obviously heading to the library to study for imminent finals.
"Hey, Michael," she replied, noting the impressed look on his friends' faces that Sayers knew a seventh year.
"What's up?" he inquired, motioning for his awed friends to go on ahead.
"Bad things," she answered.
"Oh. Well, if you feel like talking, I'm always around…" Sayers offered helpfully. "I gotta study now, but I'll see you later, chica."
"Yeah, adios," said Colleen, waving off her friend. He saluted and hurried off after his friends.
When Sayers was out of earshot, Colleen's body sagged again, and she groaned.
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"Sirius! Oh, Sirius!"
Sirius turned with an ill-disguised grimace toward the voice of Lela Lyndall, who was flouncing toward him and Remus. "What is it, Lela?" he sighed.
"Sirius!" she caught up to him, her chest heaving, apparently, with the effort of running after, although Sirius suspected it was only to draw attention to her breasts. "Oh, Sirius… I'm so sorry…"
"Why?" he asked, not really caring.
She gasped for breath for another few seconds before finally regaining her composure and standing up straight. "I just wanted to apologize for your breakup with O'Brian. I had no idea until just now."
"What are you talking about? Colleen and I didn't break up."
Lela let out a theatrical gasp and covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh, dear! But if you didn't break up, then…"
Sirius glanced at Remus in exasperation. "Cut the theatrics, Lela," he said. "What's the problem?"
"I'm sorry," she finally continued, "but I saw O'Brian and Dennie kissing in the library!"
Remus's head jerked sharply toward Sirius, whose bored face had suddenly frozen; his eyes were wide, his mouth slightly parted. He silently berated himself for not doing anything when he saw Colleen. He'd given her the benefit of the doubt, but now he realized it wasn't his place to do so; it was Sirius's.
Sirius, who suddenly felt like the world had fallen out from beneath his feet. His mind had gone blank and begun to race at the same time. He stared at Lela in shock, which quickly turned to anger.
"You're lying," he said firmly, gritting his teeth. "Colleen wouldn't do that."
Lela shrugged. "Ask her, then, but she'll tell you the same thing. If she doesn't lie to you, that is. I just hope you'll realize who you can count on after this. Buhbye, Sirius," she said in a singsong voice that made Sirius want to wring her neck. She flounced off down the hallway.
Sirius looked after her for a moment before turning to Remus. Remus stopped himself from gasping at the look of utter abandonment on Sirius's face. "You don't think she was telling the truth, do you?" he asked, pained.
Remus shrugged and averted his gaze. He wished he could say something, but for once, words eluded him.
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Tempest: Well, not exactly the most upbeat chapter, and lots of confusing character entrances and exits. But this is another in-between chapter. I'm trying to churn them out as quickly as I can before the inspiration leaves me, which you guys should appreciate. No James and Lily in this chapter, but they'll be at the beginning of the next one.
Reviews!
DOJ and SCK all that's missing is U: I'm glad you like Michael Sayers. He's based on a good friend of mine, but I wanted him to be younger, because my friend is kind of… not deep voiced yet… Which is really sad. Sammy Solo: The transitions not only were nonexistent, but the dashes between scenes disappeared in the upload! I replaced them, but yeah… I worked on that. LJ Fan: Thanks for the uplifting review! I appreciate it a lot. And I'm glad you forgive me my cheesy/cliché moments. (The computer just added the accent to 'cliché' on its own! Ooh, it did it again.) And I'm glad you like how I made Remus. Elphie73: Thank you! I proudly displayed that review to a friend of mine. I hope you review more. To wudnulike2know, KerryBear, Shima And Tempis, Kat44, and Sirael: You all will just have to wait to see how Sirius finds out… Probably five more chapters until the end, so you won't have that long to wait.
And to milky way bar, animerocksjapanrocks, chocolatefroggie19, Mary, warrior of tortall, jessie xxx, sunlitmist, Smiles28, Georgie Gryffindor, spix, Amber Moons, mcmoose43988, and everyone else who reviewed: Thank you for reviewing, guys! I love it.
Well, see y'all next time. Review, review, review!!
6-01-08: This chapter has been revamped! Hope you enjoy it more than before.