A/N: emmie4life, who has turned off her private messages, I am glad you like this story. The reason I update it so often? Because I get reviews from people like you. The second I get a review, I rush to write a bit more, even if I have to force it out, even if I'm in the throes of writer's block. It's my little way of making sure you all know how much your reviews mean to me.
The following morning found Decima cuddled up in a compartment with Sirius, Remus, James, Peter, Gwen, Tien, and Lily, speeding along toward Muggle London at the typical pace of the Hogwarts Express, making promises to visit each other and listening to the boys put the finishing touches on all of their plans for their summer bash. The compartment was hot and sticky, filled beyond its capacity with bodies, Decima and Gwen having to stack themselves atop their significant others to make sure everyone had a seat. The boys had set aside sweets specifically for the journey, and Tien even smuggled a few dozen bottles of butterbeer from the kitchens. They knew it would only last until lunchtime, when the trolley lady would come around with more food and sweets.
"So we're seventh years," said Lily softly, staring at her half-empty bottle of butterbeer thoughtfully. "It doesn't feel like I thought it would."
"How did you think it would feel?" said Sirius, motioning to Tien for a second bottle and reaching into Decima's lap for a Cauldron Cake.
"I don't know," said Lily. "Not like this. I just feel exactly the same."
"Maybe it hasn't hit you right yet," said Peter. "Maybe you won't realize it until later, maybe when we're on the train back, maybe when we get our letters, maybe when we're shopping for the last of our books."
"Or maybe when it's all over," said James, "and it's too late for the realization to do any good."
They all looked at him, blinking. Then Tien began to clap slowly and deliberately.
"Thank you, ray of sunshine," she said dryly. "Care to give us any more of your two Sickles, or are you as cheap as you are cynical?"
"I'm merely stating possibilities, Tien, dear," said James with a smirk. "I honestly doubt that will happen. And when our darling Lily and our dear Remus are Head Boy and Girl, I think it will hit all of us that seventh year is here at last."
"I wouldn't be so sure that I'll be Head Boy, James," said Remus. "I wasn't the best of Prefects, and the world doesn't actually revolve around Gryffindor, despite how much you wish it did. Besides," he added, taking a bite of chocolate and swallowing, "I suspect if it doesn't hit us sometime before, when we start revising for N.E.W.T.s it's going to hit us like a ton of bricks."
A collective groan ran through the compartment. Wrappers were thrown at Remus, as well as Sirius's shoe, and Lily moaned, "All right, it's hit me; I want to be a first year again! I'm sorry I ever said a thing!"
There was a silence then, as everyone wondered what might be an appropriate course of conversation after that.
"What was your first ride to Hogwarts like?" said Decima, ripping open a bar of Honeydukes' Best Chocolate. "Did anything interesting happen?"
"Well, the Marauders met," said Sirius. "We all ended up in a compartment together."
"And I pissed Lily off for the first time," said James with a little smirk.
"Yeah, you got into a fight about Houses with Sev."
"Well, to be fair, he was asking for it," said Sirius. "That was where we christened him 'Snivellus'."
"Lovely," said Gwen sardonically. "What else?"
"We played a hundred or so games of Exploding Snap and ate ourselves sick on sweets," mused Remus. "And then at the feast, we ate ourselves sick all over again, as if food was going out of style."
"So like every other meal, then," said Decima with a smirk of her own, tweaking Sirius's nose slightly. He twitched his nose at her in retaliation.
"What about you, love?" he said, breaking off a piece of her chocolate bar for his own consumption. "What was your ride like?"
"Well, Gwen and I met," said Decima, stretching out her legs across the compartment to rest on Peter's lap. "And your brother introduced me to Christa, who was sitting with some Slytherins from your year."
"It was awful," moaned Gwen. "There we were, a couple of starry-eyed first years who wanted nothing more than a few bits of sugar and reassurance that we weren't going to die in the process of being sorted and instead we got to listen to horror stories of these boys in Gryffindor who ate Slytherin first years for breakfast."
"Seriously?" laughed Lily. "Is that how they were advertising the Marauders?"
"Yeah, and to think you were only in your second year!" said Decima, laughing with the others.
"Oh, I had a much worse train ride," said Tien, stealing half a dozen chocolate frogs from Peter. "I got stuck in a compartment with a bunch of Ravenclaw fifth year girls, Merlin only knows how, and after they went on half the ride about what an adorable little first year I was, they proceeded to talk about how delicious they decided Gideon Prewett was, and talking about all of his broom closet gossip the rest of the way there. Needless to say, when the Sorting Hat thought about putting me in Ravenclaw, I balked."
The compartment filled with raucous laughter and remained so filled for almost the entire remainder of the ride, usually from Tien's stories, but Sirius and James and a few, and Remus told a story that got Lily laughing so hard that butterbeer sprayed out her nose. James said it was adorable.
When they finally pulled into King's Cross Station, the boys carried all of their things onto the platform. The girls hugged and said their goodbyes while the boys hurried up to meet them, rushing to the queue to reenter the Muggle world. Sirius had lightened their trunks and was dragging one in either hand, with Decima walking directly in front of him. She could feel his breath on her neck as they followed James and Lily out of the archway, into King's Cross Station.
The Potters were waiting there, kind smiles on their faces, and Decima and Sirius hung back, saying their goodbyes to their other friends as James rushed to introduce his parents to Lily. Out of the corner of her eye, Decima could see Orion Black watching her as he waited for Regulus, but she simply hugged Sirius tightly and pretended she couldn't see him. What she wouldn't give to completely avoid any sort of confrontation with the Blacks.
But Decima hardly ever got exactly what she wanted, and as fate would have it, when Mr. Potter came over to take her trunk from Sirius, remarking on what a lovely girl Lily was, Orion Black marched right up to them, giving Sirius and Decima a cold glare.
"You probably think you're really clever, don't you, boy?" he hissed at Sirius, spitting out the last word as though hoping to get some kind of bad taste out of his mouth.
"What are you talking about?" Sirius sneered back, wrapping his arm around Decima and pulling her tightly to him, glaring at his father.
"Alphard's will. He left quite a bit of money to you," spat Orion Black. "You'll be happy to know that he's been blasted off the family tree as well."
"Lovely," said Sirius ironically. "You're disowning the dead, now, as well as the living? Merlin, not long now and there won't be any Noble Blacks left to speak of, living or dead."
"You must think you're such a big man now, boy," snarled Orion. "You've got all that Black gold despite being disowned, so now you and your little blood-traitor bitch can live happily ever after, until someone with proper sentiments murders you both in your beds and bleeds her out like a pig."
"That's quite enough, Orion," said Mr. Potter evenly, before Sirius had a chance to draw his wand. "I think you ought to leave now. Your son's waiting for you."
Orion drew himself up to his full height, glared straight into Mr. Potter, and gave Decima one more contemptuous look before stalking away again. As soon as he turned his back, Decima let out a sigh of relief and a little sob, practically collapsing into Sirius. For a brief moment, she had been sure that Orion Black was going to attack her right in the middle of the train station, surrounded by all of those Muggles.
"Come on, you two," said Mr. Potter kindly. "We wouldn't want to hang around and wait for him to finally snap."
The men carried the trunks to the car and Mrs. Potter ushered Decima out with an arm around her shoulders, watching carefully for the Blacks. Decima didn't breathe easy until they were safely in the car and halfway to the Potter Manor. It was at this point when Sirius said, "Was it true, what my father said? Is Uncle Alphard dead?"
The Potters exchanged sad glances before Mrs. Potter informed him that his favorite uncle was, indeed, dead and had, indeed, left him quite a sum of money. Somewhere in the back of her mind, behind all her compassion and love for Sirius, behind her humanity at feeling the loss of a human life to be tragic, behind her decency at knowing she ought to feel sad, Decima had a twinge of happiness. They were still social outcast, true, but they wouldn't have to rely on the Potters and their charity for the rest of their lives. Sirius had money now. It wasn't the vast and incredible fortune he had had before, but it was certainly more than either of them had hoped of having, she was sure. She vaguely wondered if these thoughts made her a bad person, but if she was being perfectly honest with herself, she didn't actually care.
But Sirius wouldn't take those thoughts very well, so Decima made sure to keep any hint of happiness out of her features as she laced her fingers in his and softly kissed the single fallen tear off his cheek. He didn't need to think about his future in that moment, he needed to grieve, and for that he needed her compassion and support. Her logical side could come out later, when they actually had to sit down and discuss the money. She would have to remind herself, when the time came, not to appear too happy about it. He would likely still be sensitive about the death of his uncle.
And then she noticed the strange, veiled stared James was giving her, as if trying to read her soul with a look. Decima suppressed a shudder and wondered if he knew, or even guess at, what she was thinking. And if he did, would he share his suspicions with Sirius?
When they arrived back at the Potter Manor, the men took care of all their things and Mrs. Potter led Decima into the house for a chat and some iced tea. When they reached the kitchen and Mrs. Potter poured a couple of glasses, Decima stared at hers thoughtfully, vaguely aware that Mrs. Potter was watching her as she sipped her own iced tea.
"I know what went through your mind, Decima, and it doesn't make you a bad person."
Decima's eyes widened in shock as she looked at Mrs. Potter. Was that family full of mind-readers or something?
"Just don't say anything to Sirius, and avoid talking about it with James," Mrs. Potter pressed on. "Men like to think we're the sentimental ones, but it's a woman's job to think about the financial security of her future and family, and you're perfectly within your rights to do so, as long as you do so in a quiet and reserved fashion. Men always read the wrong things into such notions."
"So… so I'm not being selfish?"
Mrs. Potter smiled and shook her head. Decima felt as though a weight had lifted off her shoulders. As long as she wasn't stupid about it, she could be happy and still be there for Sirius in his time of need. When the boys joined them, Mrs. Potter poured them some iced tea and said, "I suppose you'll not be staying here much longer, then, Sirius."
Sirius frowned.
"What? What do you mean? You don't want me here anymore?"
She laughed and shook her head.
"Of course that's not what I mean. We love having you here. But I know you well enough to know you don't like living off charity, and now that you have a bit of money and you're of age, you can get yourself a proper place to stay. Merlin knows you and Miss Zimmerman could do with some more alone time."
Sirius smiled softly, clearly fond of the idea of more alone time. He nodded a little.
"I think I'll sit down with Dad after the funeral and go over my financial options. He knows a lot more about this kind of thing than I do. But I do like the sound of that. We'd still be welcome here, though?"
"Of course, Sirius," said Mrs. Potter with a fond smile at both of them. "In fact, I rather insist that you come for Sunday brunch each week."
That night, Decima curled up on the couch with Sirius, drinking tea and holding each other. Everyone else in the house had gone to bed. The shock of the news of his uncle's death seemed to be wearing off and he was petting her hair softly, humming to himself.
"This is my favorite spot in this whole house," he sighed.
"Why's that?" she whispered.
"It's where we first made love," he hissed in her ear, licking the shell of it slowly. "Do you remember?"
"Mmm," she moaned. "How could I forget?"
"If I did get my own place," he said, squeezing her hand tightly, "would you come with me?"
Decima bit her lip. In a way, it wouldn't be any different from being with him at school, or being with him at the Potter Manor. It's just that there wouldn't be anyone else there. That was appealing in many ways, but socially… it was completely inappropriate for her to live with her boyfriend.
"Sirius," she sighed, "I would love to. But do you think it's really appropriate for us to–?"
Sirius snorted.
"CiCi, I love you, but there's a war going on out there. I think it's time to kick the concepts of social appropriateness out the window."
She giggled a little and snuggled tighter into his chest. He was right. Even if they weren't disowned, the war was going to make social structure obsolete, for a while, anyway. Sirius would want to fight. She wouldn't be able to stop him, and she wouldn't want to. There was no telling when it was his funeral they would be awaiting next. Marriage would be foolish. But this was a commitment they could make, something they could do that couldn't hurt them any more if someone died.
"I would move in with you, Sirius," she whispered. "I can't think of anyone else I'd rather be with."
"Well, that's good, darling," he said with a little chuckle, because you're stuck with me, I think."
Decima hugged him tightly and curled up into a ball on his lap, basking in the warmth of his body, the gentleness of his touch, the care that emanated from his being. She didn't want to let go. She didn't want anything to change between them. Things had already changed so much from that first time they made love on that couch. They had nearly fallen apart so many times, mostly because of something stupid or impulsive she had said or done. He wasn't blameless, but she knew that she was the cause of a lot of the tension in their lives. Whatever the war didn't cause, she had a considerable hand in.
"Sirius," she breathed, running her finger gently along his jawline. "I love you so much, darling. I don't want things to ever come between us again."
"I promise you, Decima," he sighed, "I'll always be there for you, even if there comes a day you want me to leave. I'm never leaving you. It would take the entire force of the Wizarding world to keep me apart from you."
Their lips met. They both knew how cheesy they were being, but in that moment, it felt right. After all, their youth, their childhood, was almost over. They weren't going to be able to shag on the Potters' couch whenever they wanted for the rest of their lives.
"Make love to me, Sirius," she whispered against his neck as she kissed it. "Make love to me right here, right now, like the first time."
"Are you sure, CiCi?" he whispered. "We can go to one of our rooms…"
"No," she moaned. "When we move out, we can sleep in a bedroom all we want, but this may be the last time we'll ever get to do this right here on this couch. And I want you so badly, Sirius."
Even if it hadn't been the truth, she knew that was all she needed to say. Sirius didn't like the idea of saying no when she begged so sweetly, and so she begged, she pleaded, and he gave her exactly what she wanted. James was in for another shocking morning, but if he wasn't used to it by now, that wasn't Decima's problem. Everyone else seemed to accept the fact that they shagged like particularly indiscriminant bunnies. James would catch up. Perhaps he would figure it out when he found them tangled in a naked, sweaty mess on his parents' couch in the morning.