. . . never to apologize.

After a couple days of watching Sirius and after a couple more days of thinking about it, Mary decided to say something to him. Every time she thought of the moment, her stomach erupted in nervous butterflies, but she was determined. She had to make it right no matter if Sirius cared or didn't.

The only time she could think of to say something was after Potions class during which she couldn't concentrate all period. Slughorn had assigned the Draught of Peace for them to make today. She thought he was going to kick her out and send her to McGonagall when she accidently added a bit too much of hellebore: the potion boiled, turned orange, and began screaming bloody murder. Alice, her partner, almost melted from embarrassment.

When everything was settled down, a very perturbed Slughorn dismissed them early, and Mary was so unnerved that she forgot she needed to somehow distract James and make Sirius stay late.

"Mary?"

Mary snapped her head to Alice, who was looking at her curiously. "Sorry, I was thinking about, erm, other stuff."

Alice's eyebrows rose steeply. "Apparently. Maybe next class you'll be more yourself, or, erm, more yourself than you were today anyway. Erm, see you later. I'm meeting Frank." As Alice walked off, Mary turned back to look at Sirius, who was now almost to the door.

Mary darted towards him, slipped, and crashed loudly into a row of desks. Sirius stumbled and dropped his notebook, pages flying out everywhere, and Mary scrambled up as other students came rushing to help her. Mary flew to him as James took in the entire scene with very wide eyes.

"James," Mary said breathlessly trying to think fast, "Lily—said to—" But Mary did not have to finish her lie as James rushed off down the hall in pursuit of Lily.

"Bloody bastard," muttered Sirius.

"I'm so sorry," said Mary as she dropped to the floor to pick up the loose-leaf pages. Before she could even touch one, they flew to Sirius as he summoned them and neatly arranged themselves back into his notebook. Sirius looked down at her with surprise.

"Great, great, great," she said dusting off her knees as she stood, "nothing ever works out how it's supposed to. I can't even apologize without it turning into a disaster. Bad luck, Magnus says. I'm cursed!"

"Who the bloody hell are you talking to?" exclaimed Sirius, his first words to her in a month.

"Nobody, Sirius, nobody," she replied hotly. "That's what you called me, right?"

Sirius's lips thinned.

Mary sighed. "Look, all I wanted to do was apologize to you, and it turned into a big mess—"

"More like Mary the Catastrophe turned it into a big mess," he said.

Mary looked at him and scowled, but Sirius was kind of smiling at her. Smiling. Kind of.

"Listen, I'm—"

"If you're about to say 'sorry,' stop," he interrupted her, "and if you're so keen on going out with me, alright, we'll go out."

"I—no, that's—Sirius, I seriously—erm . . ." She trailed off as Sirius roared with laughter, and she just stood there and watched him because she didn't know what to do. She was so surprised they were talking that she just stared at him.

When Sirius finally stopped, he said, "Lighten up, Mary. We're friends again, okay? Stop worrying."

Mary felt anger bubbling up inside of her, and just as she was about to say something, Sirius's eyes narrowed in something close to expectation. He wanted her to say something. Well, if he wanted to hear what she had to say. . .

"You're infuriating, Sirius Black."

A/N: Dedicated to the Most Awesome Sunriserooftops :) That was one of the best comments EVER! You really encouraged me. All of you do!

The title is taken from P.G. Wodehouse, "It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them." I like the idea, but I don't know if it would work for my life…. It looks like it works in Sirius and Mary's :)

I didn't really do a grammar/spelling check... I hope you all enjoyed it! Let me know!