It was three in the morning. Decima had awoken in a cold sweat, a nightmare about her upcoming O.W.L.s waking her. She stared at the curtains around the bed for a moment, gripping tightly at what she had assumed in her half-asleep daze were the sheets, but then she heard a sleepy groan and two arms wrapped tightly around her and she realized she had just grasped Sirius's boxers. She was lying on top of him.
"Are you all right, love?" he whispered. "You're trembling. What time is it?"
"I'm fine," sighed Decima, trying to calm herself. "Go back to sleep."
"No, no, it's not fine," he muttered sleepily, looking down at his watch. "You've got your tests today. You need sleep. Tell me what's wrong."
Decima rolled over and looked up into Sirius's anxious but tired face, tracing a finger lightly across his jaw and muttering, "Just a bad dream, darling. It doesn't matter."
"About what, CiCi?" he hissed softly into her ear. "I'm not dropping this until you tell me."
With a sigh, she began tracing her finger in circles along his muscular chest.
"I've been having more nightmares about my O.W.L.s," she admitted softly. "I'm just afraid I'm going to mess them all up!"
"Aw, darling," he cooed, "you're brilliant, love. There's absolutely nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about. Is there anything I can do to help you get back to sleep?"
Decima just shook her head and hugged Sirius tightly, allowing him to wrap his strong arms around her.
"No, love," she sighed. "I'm just going to have to do my best to fall asleep. You should do the same though."
But Decima didn't get any more sleep that night. She ran through the theory for Cheering Charms in her mind as she watched Sirius sleep peacefully, wishing she hadn't woken him at all. She wanted so badly to keep her own problems from being his problems. Decima was painfully aware of all the trouble she had caused for him since they first met. She realized that he wanted to her to be strong, for herself, for him, and she realized now that she couldn't stand in the shadows and hope he would take care of her. It was time for her to step up and be her own person.
Finally, Remus woke everyone up and they began getting ready for breakfast. Remus was so insistent on doing everything he could for Decima and Gwen, as he wanted to make sure his girlfriend did her absolute best on her O.W.L.s. Sirius was different. He wanted Decima to do well, but he didn't think he needed to fawn over her, wait on her, or quiz her constantly. He had extreme faith in her abilities, and probably more than she herself did. She wished he would at least quiz her. He had, at least, agreed to help her prepare for her Transfiguration O.W.L., which was going to be the hardest for her, anyway.
Breakfast was uneventful, except that Decima, Gwen and Tien all stared at their food anxiously, none of them really up to eating a thing. Tien managed to stuff a few sausages down her throat, but only because she had James bugging her about her health and staying in shape for the upcoming Quidditch season. No amount of guilt tripping could have gotten Decima to eat, however. Her stomach was churning at the very sight of food and Sirius, quite respectfully, ate just enough to hold himself over, and quickly before taking her and Gwen away from the table. Tien joined them as soon as she could escape from James. The three girls walked Sirius to his class, though he really didn't need to go so early. They all knew he was doing them a silent favor, taking their mind off their nerves.
Before the girls made their way back down to the Great Hall for their first test, Sirius pulled Decima aside and gave her a hot, passionate kiss. All of her worries melted away suddenly as she melted into his arms and she sighed against his lips.
"What was that for?" she muttered happily, placing a gentle kiss on his neck.
"That was to help you feel better," he muttered back, giving her another quick peck. "You'll do amazing, darling. I promise."
All annoyance Decima had felt at him not helping her more disappeared instantly, and she made her way back to the Great Hall with Tien and Gwen in an incredibly giddy mood. The other two must have had inklings as to her eager behavior, and they said not a word, for which she was grateful.
At lunch, she was greeted with a kiss on the cheek, and Remus greeted all three girls with anxious questions about the exam. By now, he was the only anxious person at their part of the table. The girls were now quite confident in their abilities, and as Lily pointed out, they were quite capable witches who knew Charms exceedingly well.
By the time the day was over, Decima wasn't worried about anything, except for her Transfiguration O.W.L., which happened to be the very next day. As soon as that thought hit her, she grew silent, not listening to her friend's jokes, declining the offer to play in a large-group round of Exploding Snap, and excusing herself to bed early. Somehow, she wasn't entirely sure how, she found herself in the shower, fully clothed, sobbing into her hands, shaking with fear at the thought of her Transfiguration exam the following day.
"CiCi?" she heard from outside the shower. Sirius was calling for her. Her eyes grew wide with horror and shame and she crouched in the corner of the shower, trying to hold in her sobs, praying to Merlin that he couldn't hear her.
But she had forgotten the absolute lack of privacy amongst those staying in this dormitory, and a second later, Sirius stepped in and looked down at her, shocked and a little scared. He turned off the water and sat down beside her on the damp floor, wrapping an arm around her soaked waist as she cried into his shoulder.
"Darling, what's wrong?" he cooed, raking his fingers gently through her sopping wet hair.
"I'm going to fail Transfiguration," she moaned. "And I have no idea what I want to do with my life, but I'm sure I'll need that N.E.W.T. and there's no way I'll pass. And even if I do, it'll be barely scrapping an Acceptable. I've been h-h-having nightmares about it all week."
"Oh, baby," he sighed, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her forehead. "Come on, love, let's get you dry and warm and we'll talk about this reasonably, okay? We can go to the kitchens and get some hot chocolate. How does that sound?"
Decima nodded numbly, allowing him to lead her out into the dormitory, drying her off with his wand and tossing her his cloak for extra warmth before drying himself and leading her off to the kitchen. She barely noticed a thing until he had her settled down at a table, waiting for sweets and hot chocolate promised by the house-elves, who like almost everyone else in the castle, absolutely adored Sirius.
"Now, darling, you've been revising with Remus and Gwen, right?"
She nodded numbly once more, sipping her hot chocolate steadily.
"So why all the anxiety? Has it not been going well?"
"No, it's been going fine," she said thoughtfully, now that she was no longer hysterical. "I don't know, I guess Transfiguration has always caused me anxiety. I mean, you know how horrible I am at it."
"Well, that's true," he said, stroking his stubble thoughtfully. Then he drained his mug in a gulp and set it down in the center of the table. "Turn it into a… oh… how about a salamander? Those aren't scary in any way, are they?"
"No, not really," she said nervously, setting down her own, half-empty mug. "But I don't think I know how to do that."
"Sure you do, darling," he cooed encouragingly. "Now, think through the theory for a moment, do you know how to change something from this type of material?"
"Yes, we've used teacups in class," she said thoughtfully.
"Good, that's right. Now, what's the most similar resultant you've used to a salamander?"
That was a difficult question. They'd done mice, birds, beetles, spiders… They had turned a glass goblet to a snake once.
"Snakes, but I wasn't starting from a teacup."
"Darling," he said with a sigh and a smile, "have you forgotten everything I've taught you? All transfigurations come in two parts, respective to the material and the resultant. You've worked with this material, you've worked with something rather similar to this resultant. Think about resultants that had the characteristics a salamander has, but a snake doesn't and how you'll have to alter that part, and you'll be golden."
After a few attempts and with careful guidance, Decima had a proper salamander in front of her. Sirius had her transfigure a few other things until she was getting everything on the first try. He leaned across the table and kissed her as she turned the porcupine back into his shoe.
"You're going to be just fine, love," he whispered, "just fine."
And Sirius was right. Decima survived the remainder of her O.W.L.s with a remarkably minimal amount of stress. When he realized how hard it had been on her, suffering in silence, wondering how abysmally she would fail, Sirius began carrying around chocolates, giving her one every time someone mentioned anything to do with Transfiguration.
After the first week of O.W.L.s were over, she had to insist that he cease and desist with this manner of assisting her, because she told him she didn't want to gain fifty kilos just because of nerves. He promptly told her that he would stop if she liked, but that he knew of a much better way to keep off any extra kilos threatening to take up residence on her body.
The days after O.W.L.s were spent peacefully, lounging in the sun with the Marauders, Gwen, Tien, and Lily, who seemed to have grown incredibly closer to the girls connected to the Marauders than she had been with Mary, even before the fight, whatever that had been about. Sirius especially enjoyed seeing how many days in a row he could throw Decima into the lake and apologize, with sex as his reward for an apology, of course.
When it finally came time for the feast, Decima had almost all of her packing done. Sirius, however, was being unhelpful, as usual.
"Sirius," she sighed, "if we have any hopes of going to the feast, you need to let me pack."
"Who said I wanted to go to the feast?" he teased.
She gave him a stern look.
"Couldn't you do your packing after the feast is over?"
Decima gave a snort.
"Right, I'm going to assume you just didn't think that one through, because it will be late when the feast is over and you're going to want to have sex and go to sleep. Now I'm only going to ask you this one time, would you rather I do this now, or later?"
"Now," he sighed, flopping himself back onto his bed and pouting. It was a face that looked as though it would have been far more at home on a five-year-old. In remained plastered on his face until Remus informed them that if they wanted to be on time to the feast they had best be heading down. Then, Sirius sat up with an eager smile on his face. "Ready to go?"
Decima sighed.
"No, Sirius, I'm not. Go on ahead, and save me a seat. I'll meet you down there, okay?"
He frowned, but nodded and followed Peter out of the dormitory. Decima sighed heavily and decided that if she wanted to make it to the feast before dessert she would have to start chucking everything into her trunk at random and hoping she could get Sirius to close it for her later. So when all of her things were piled more or less inside of her trunk twenty minutes later, she started for the Great Hall, hoping she wouldn't draw too much attention to her late arrival. At the top of the marble staircase, however, she ran into an unwanted figure.
"Regulus!" she gasped, taking a step back.
"Decima, before you do something rash, I just want to talk," he said slowly, his eyes pleading with her.
"What could we possibly have to talk about at this point, Regulus?" she said sadly, knowing that they truly were on two totally separate paths.
"Decima, I just… I…" his eyes were misting before her and he sighed heavily. "Please, I want to know you're safe. I need to know that you've got somewhere to stay and someone to take care of you because you're considered a target and I don't know what I'd do if… if something h-happened to you. It would be all m-m-my fault."
Decima didn't know what to do, what to think. She just nodded numbly and said, "I'm going to be just fine, Regulus. I have a safe place to stay. Now, I'm going to the feast, so excuse me."
Regulus nodded and simply watched her take off down the marble staircase, not following her into the feast like she thought he would. They were almost done with dinner when she got to the Great Hall, and she spotted Sirius because of Gwen. The one person wearing Slytherin colors in the sea of Gryffindor was like a beacon calling her over to the seat which had been saved for her. Decima smiled at her friends and sat down beside Sirius, who kissed her forehead when she sat and passed her the rolls.
"That took long enough, darling. If you weren't here by desert I was going to come up and check on you. I was starting to get worried."
"Oh, I was fine," she said with a chuckled, "but you'll have to close my trunk, Sirius. I started getting haphazard when I thought I might miss dessert and I don't think I'll be able to close the trunk without help."
"A pleasure to be of service, m'lady," he said with a little smirk and an abbreviated bow of the head. Gwen giggled, Tien rolled her eyes and Lily just sighed.
Dessert was a grand affair, as always, and as Sirius had taken to doing lately, he fed her a little bit of each thing on the table, let her pick two desserts, and spoon or fork fed her a serving of each. Gwen sighed about how utterly romantic it was, but Decima knew that it was because he enjoyed the rapturous look on her face when she had sweets and it was the closest thing he was getting to her sex face in public. Sirius Black was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them. He always found a way to get what he wanted.
Dumbledore stood and the entire hall fell silent. He smiled down at them with his twinkling blue eyes peering down over his half-moon spectacles, his hands poised as though ready to begin applauding on a moment's notice.
"Another year has come and gone and it is time for us to say our goodbyes. It is, of course, time to award the House Cup, and the points stand thus: with three hundred and seventy-two points, Ravenclaw; with four hundred and six points, Hufflepuff; with four hundred and ninety-four points, Slytherin; and with five hundred and three points, Gryffindor wins the House Cup! Well done Gryffindor!"
That last sentence was barely audible over the roars emitting from the Gryffindor table. They hadn't won by much, but they had one, and as Sirius said, that was all that mattered. Professor Dumbledore talked for a little while longer, especially congratulating the seventh years who had finished their N.E.W.T.s and were heading out into the world.
Back in the dormitory, Sirius was busy squashing Decima's trunk closed while she brushed her teeth. Next year, he would be done. This time next year, he would be going out into the world, into the war, putting his life on the line every day, because Sirius could never be happy doing anything else. She rinsed her mouth, tossed her toothbrush in Sirius's trunk, which they had agreed would hold all of their last-minute things, and climbed into bed, pulling the hangings shut around the pair of them.
"Something wrong, darling?" he whispered, running the heel of his hand along her spine. "You seem tense."
"We're going to run into your family at King's Cross, I just know it," she muttered. It was true, that had been on her mind, although it wasn't what was troubling her presently. Decima didn't want to worry Sirius with all the things she had weighing on her mind.
"You won't have to worry about them, darling," he sighed into her ear. "They won't do anything in public like that. Things aren't so bad yet that even a Black can attack someone in the middle of Muggle London and not get locked up. I hope it never gets that bad."
"I wish I had your confidence," she muttered, referring not just to that matter, but to the war in general. He must have realized this.
"It's going to be all right, CiCi. I promise you, someday we'll have a little house in the country and we'll fill it up with children and decorate it with family photos, and we'll be the godparents of all our friends' children and we'll have brunch at Potter Manor with all our friends and family every Sunday."
Decima giggled as he tickled her side on purpose.
"There's that beautiful smile," he muttered, pressing his lips to hers.
"That all sounds absolutely lovely, Sirius," she sighed, laying back on the pillows and allowing him to climb on top of her. It was their last night together at Hogwarts for several months. Despite the fact that she wasn't in the best of moods for sex, there wasn't any reason good enough to deny Sirius, when somewhere in the back of her mind, behind all the worries, Decima wanted it too.