Chapter 16

The next week passed smoothly. Sirius seemed a lot happier, if that's possible. It was almost as if he had been trying to run with a big weight on his back and once he told me about his family the weight fell away and he could sprint. My mood was improved as well, not that anyone could tell. People, even my friends, tend to mistake my energy level and my hyper-ness for my general mood.

We had quidditch practice every day after class for 4 hours as well, thank you James. We were so busy that Lily even canceled the study sessions. The professors took the opportunity to go easy on us and give us a lighter workload since apparently it's just as time consuming and annoying to grade papers as it is to write them. Lily and James's truce continued, for the most part at least. She did have to smack him a few hundred times to get him to stop going on a power trip during practice. Yeesh, you give a guy a Captains badge and it goes right to his head.

The Thursday before the match I was sitting next to Sirius at the Gryffindor table eating my breakfast. He got up to go talk to a friend in Ravenclaw with James and Remus, Peter was mysteriously absent again. I just know that boy is up to something, but I can't figure out what it is. I was munching on some bacon, pondering life, love, the number 42, and how they invented Jell-O when all of a sudden I feel a presence behind me. The hairs stood up on my arms and the back of my neck and before I could turn to look and see who it was, my head was jerked backwards by my ponytail leaving me lying on my back staring up at the face of one Lexi Edlyn.

I rolled over and stood up, glaring at Lexi the entire time. "Was there a reason for that? Or did you just want to rip my head off?"

"Oh, just came over to see how Sirius's favorite plaything is doing. Hope he's been behaving himself."

"Like it's any of your business whether he has or hasn't."

"It is actually since his parents and my parents decided this summer that he and I should get married." Lexi gave me a satisfied smile. I paused for a moment, somewhat stunned, and Lexi continued "Oh yes, that's right. Your wonderful boyfriend is engaged and he didn't even tell you. How nice." her smile grew, becoming quite sinister looking.

"I don't know what you're talking about. Sirius can't be engaged, he's much too young, and besides, even if he is, he hasn't told me for a reason."

"And what reason, little girl do you think that could possibly be?" she sneered at me now.

"First, he probably doesn't even agree with the marriage, his family is the scum of the earth you know. Secondly, I'm not little." she was really beginning to piss me off. First she has the guffaw to drag me off the bench by my pony tail, then she speaks lies a bout Sirius, and now she insults me? Of course, what else could I expect from a Slytherine like her. "Now, leave me alone. Go running back to your slimey little friends, if you can call them that, and leave me be."

"Or you'll what?" Lexi sneered even more and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

Now, I'm normally not a very violent person. Okay, well, that's a lie, but I'm normally able to keep control of my temper. It seems, however, that she knows exactly which buttons to push, and when to push them, to get me to the boiling point. Standing at 5'4" and probably nothing more than 110 lbs I knew I could easily take her, especially since she probably hadn't worked a day in her life and had no real muscle to speak of. She threw her black shoulder length hair over her shoulder with one hand and put the other on her hip. Glaring at me with her black eyes she said "I didn't think you'd do anything, you're too chicken."

Or not.

I dropped down and span on one leg, sweeping the other around and catching her around her ankles all in one fluid movement and causing Miss Alexandra Edlyn to fall flat on her ass. Thank you Lily; thank you study sessions; thank you guy who invented the move to begin with, I owe you all one. Thanks to those people I now got the great joy of laughing triumphantly at Lexi who floundered around on the floor for a few minutes then stood up and flattened her skirt. "What were you saying about chickens?" I asked her, adopting an innocent look.

She squinted her eyes, pursed her lips, and shot daggers at me with her eyes. Then she made a noise like "humph!" and stormed away, the small crowd that had gathered parting before her like the Red Sea to Moses. Well, sort of.

Sirius came over from the other side of the room and looked from the crowd of people, to Lexi's retreating back, to my suspicious apprehension directed in his direction, then back at the spot where Lexi had been again. "Er… everything alright Bec?"

"Yeah, sure, everything's fine. Lexi was just starting something she couldn't finish is all."

"Are you sure?" he asked, slight concern showing in his voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine, she's got a large bruise on her ass, and your honor is defended. Now can we get to class already?" I had gathered my books while I spoke and was now headed in the direction of the doors to the Great Hall. Rebby and Lily, who had been on the other side of the table during the fight, if you can call it that, had packed up as well and followed me out of the hall.

"Maybe she really was lying?" Rebby offered.

"Or maybe she was telling me the truth and Sirius is a doddering blockhead with an inability to tell anyone anything."

"Or maybe you're jumping to conclusions and you need to talk to Sirius about this first." Lily said, grabbing my shoulder and forcing me to stop. "He's a git, I'll be the first one to say it and the last to take it back, but even he deserves an even chance."

"Fine, I'll talk to him." I said, continuing to class.

The rest of the day passed in a blur, all I really remember is drawing a lot of nasty things in my sketch book, getting points taken from Gryffindor in Charms when I refused to even attempt the charm and instead sat and sketched some more, and Sirius giving me really hurt looks every time I sat with Lily or Rebby instead of him in class. I completely skipped lunch, went to the kitchens to get some dinner, and when I showed up to quidditch practice I was barely in time, providing Sirius little time to even give me a strange look before pushing off on my broom and taking off after the snitch.

What can I say? When I get in a mood, I get in a mood. The only good news is, the Seeker position doesn't require me handling anything other than a broom and a snitch, meaning I didn't have a chance to kill anyone. By the end of practice most of my steam had blown off, but not all of it. I walked up to Sirius as he landed his broom, snatched away his Beater's bat, grabbed the quaffle, remounted my broom and took off again just in time to hear Lily say "Don't worry, she just needs to let off some steam. She'll be fine later. Why don't you guys just go on up to the Tower, Rebby and I will wait here for her."

After a good half hour of beating the crap out of the quaffle by tossing it into the air and smacking it as hard as possible in the other direction, then flying to wherever it was headed and hitting it back in the direction it came from, almost like a one sided tennis match, I finally landed by the girls dressing rooms. I was tired, sweaty, and completely worn out emotionally. My mood still wasn't good, but I had at least calmed down from the rather large temper I had worked myself into all day. Now it was time for a nice long shower, some food, and beautiful, wonderful, majestic sleep.

However, this plan of action was over before it even really began. I got as far as inside the dressing room before I realized that Lily and Rebby were waiting in ambush. They gave me curious, worried, and agitated looks and opened their mouths to speak, but I cut them off. "Don't start now; I'm going to take a shower. Showers equal relaxation; relaxation equals calm; calm equals me not killing someone, like you" I poked Rebby "or you" I poked Lily "or Sirius." I kept walking and the girls gave me apprehensive looks, but followed in my wake just the same.

After my shower, I came out fully dressed in nice, comfy sweatpants and a t-shirt only to be greeted by their worried looks again. Great. "Not now." I said, and continued on my way to the kitchens in the castle to grab a sandwich to go. As I exited the kitchen, sandwich in hand, the two stood silently giving me the exact same look as before. Now it was getting annoying. Grrrr… "WHAT? What is it? You could try NOT staring at me, couldn't you?"

"No, because then you wouldn't let us talk, or listen to us even if you did let us talk." Rebby stated.

"Hrmph…"

"You're stubborn; we know it, now get used to it." Lily said blatantly.

"Whatever." I said quite, well, stubbornly.

"Now, why haven't you talked to him yet?" Rebby asked.

"I just, I, oh, I don't… I don't know… I just… I don't want to talk to him, to ask him about it, and for it to be true."

"Why?"

"I, well... I guess, it scares me, the thought of him being taken away by someone else; the thought that he may have been just using me as a toy from the beginning."

"You're really smitten with this one aren't you?" Lily asked with a concerned look on her face.

"Um… smitten?" I raised an eyebrow, as if to say 'where'd that word come from?' "Yeah… I guess so… I just… I don't know…" I sighed. Why is life always so hard as a teenager? Why is life always so… weird? I mean, I finally get a boyfriend I actually care about and what happens? I find out he's engaged.

"Hummm…." Lily said.

"Would you like to elaborate on that thought?" Rebby asked her with a small smile.

"No not really. I'd like to keep it to myself for a bit, thanks." She replied. Rebby proceeded to attempt to force her to tell her what she was thinking by poking her ceaselessly. I bowed my head and walked forward, in the direction of the Gryffindor Tower. The two realized I wasn't there anymore and followed.

We walked in silence all the way to the Gryffindor Tower, and just before we reached the Portrait hole Lily stopped me and said "You know, just because he imight/i be engaged, doesn't mean he iwants/i to be engaged. Especially at so young an age, and being Sirius, the womanizing pervert we all know and love. Just, keep that in mind when you talk to him, okay?"

"Okay." I said quietly.

"Rumple Stillskin." Rebby said aloud, causing me to turn and look at her strangely, but my question was answered before I even asked it as the portrait of the Fat Lady swung open on its hinges and the three of us climbed through and into the Gryffindor Commons.

The first thing I saw upon entering the commons was Sirius chasing James around the commons. Remus was sitting in a chair with his feet up on the table reading the Daily Prophet yelling off handed comments about how they were going to destroy the commons and for Sirius not to kill James. Peter was sitting across from Remus his eyes jumping nervously from James and Sirius running about and Remus sitting calmly reading the paper and sipping a cup of tea.

"Give it back, James!"

"Nope! I'm going to post this on the bulletin board for everyone to see!"

"GIVE IT THE BLOODY HELL BACK!"

"Or maybe I'll just give it to—" but who James was going to give it to, or in fact what 'it' was, we'd never know, since Lily chose that moment to react.

"What the bloody hell is going on here?" Lily yelled angrily, her face slowly beginning to turn red.

James stopped on the spot. "Hello Lily!" he said, smiling brightly. Then he was plowed over by Sirius who couldn't slow down fast enough. The two wrestled about on the floor for a few minutes until Sirius managed to pin James long enough to rip a small item from James's hand and then rolled off him and shoved the item into his jeans pocket.

Lily, whose face was now a nice shade of magenta, glared at the two of them. "Would you two grow up for once? You act like 6 year olds chasing each other around the commons and wrestling on the floor." She turned to where Remus and Peter were sitting. "And you, Remus, you do realize that we're in charge of making sure stuff like this doesn't happen in the commons, right? It's our job as Prefects to keep order around here!"

Peter let out a scared squeak and Remus raised an eyebrow and replied. "Yes Lily, I know that, why do you think I have my wand out? I've been repairing everything they break the minute it's been broken. Plus I've been prepared to stun them if need be, however I felt a certain amount of lee-way was necessary considering they've been behaving themselves recently." Remus gestured absently with his wand and took another sip of tea. "Besides, they were just messing around. They are teenage boys after all, it's what they do."

"And they can't be more like you because?"

"Because I was forced to mature a little faster than they were, you know." Remus gave Lily an oddly significant look over the top of the paper. That's odd. What was that look for? There's definitely something going on there...

I cleared my throat loudly "Sirius?" He looked over at me and cocked an eyebrow in curiosity. I jerked my head towards the door to the commons. It was time to find out what was truth and what was fiction.

He followed me out of the commons, through the hall and into an empty classroom. I seemed to be spending a lot of time in empty classrooms recently. I closed the door and sat across from Sirius at a dusty old desk. "What's up?" he asked. "Are you going to tell me why you're mad at me now? I mean, did I do something wrong, or say something or what?"

"You didn't do or say anything wrong, Sirius, I've just been thinking about something I heard recently…"

"From Lexi Edlyn?" he asked.

"Yes, actually."

"I thought this might have something to do with that, erm, encounter." Sirius said, he leaned forward and reached out for my hand, which I allowed him to hold in his own. "What did she say?" he asked.

"Well, mainly the usual gossip, which didn't bother me. You know, that I was just a, I believe her term was 'plaything', and that you don't really care about me and that I'd be tossed aside soon. All of that is a load of crap and I know it. What she said that really bothered me was a bit more, um, serious, if you'll pardon the unintentional pun."

"Really? What did she come up with?"

"Well, that's just the thing, I'm not sure she made up what she said. That's why I've been so, well, worried I suppose." I took a moment to gather myself, to prepare what exactly I was going to say. "Sirius, she said that the two of you were engaged." I looked up at Sirius to gage his reaction.

Sirius's face adopted an expression of mild surprise followed by that of extreme annoyance and… something else… "Well, she sure did take her time using that against me." Sirius said.

"So it's true then, you're engaged to her?" I asked, pulling my hand away from his. I just knew this wasn't going to be pretty.

"Yes, but it wasn't something I wanted, my parents arranged it with her parents. They said something about 'saving the family name' by 'setting me up with a nice pureblooded girl' or some crap like that. We're supposed to get married the summer after our seventh year." He said, rolling his eyes. "My parents are so stupid. Don't they know people don't arrange marriages anymore? Merlin, they're idiots. I planned on breaking off the engagement and moving out this. I'll be 17 then, of age, so they won't be able to drag me back home in order to 'preserve the family name' or whatever."

"Really? Why not do it now then?"

"Because I have to go back in order to get my stuff and get some money out of my vault at Gringots. If I were to break it off now, they'd burn all of my stuff or give it to Regulus and transfer all of my money into their account and close out mine."

"Can they do that?"

"Well, technically it is their money, and they have control of the account until I turn 17. You see, they set up an account for Regulus and I respectively that get a small percentage of the money in their vault transferred into it once a month. That way they don't have to worry about the little things, like actually caring when we go to Diagon Alley or out to do something with a friend. That way Regulus and I are taken care of financially without their having to actually get involved in our lives." Sirius rolled his eyes again and brushed his hair back with his hand.

I took this in slowly. Sirius is engaged. Sirius doesn't want to be engaged. Sirius's parents arranged the engagement to save their own social standing. Sirius has a bank account controlled by his parents. Whoa, hold up. "Wait, exactly how much a month do you get in your vault?

"We get around 5 each out of our parents vault a year, which last year added up to 50,000 galleons. This year it will be slightly higher, my father's business ventures are doing well apparently."

Add to the former list of things to take in 'Sirius is filthy stinking rich.' "Damn. That's a lot of money." Wait, side tracked. "So, let me get this straight. You're engaged to a girl you don't want to marry because your parents set you up with her and you can't break it off because you'll be financially bankrupt and they'll get rid of all your stuff?"

"Yes."

"And you didn't find it appropriate to tell me this because…?" I gave him an expectant look but he just shrugged it off. Honestly the guy is impossible to get to open up. Sometimes I wish he was more like James is with Lily, completely open. Of course then I would have had him arrested for stalking, something I recommend to Lily once or twice a year, but she dismisses out of the kindness of her heart. Yeah right, she totally has the hots for him. Of course, they do seem to be getting along now. She says their friends now, but I wonder how long that will last before James goes all love struck on her again. Not long, I'm sure, maybe until Christmas if he's lucky. Of course, by then it may not matter, Lily might have broken down by then and given in to what all of her friends can see; that she and James belong together. Rebby and are working on a plan to get the two of them together, Mikki and Win are helping us, and Reij and Rach might will probably get pulled into it at some point and Remus, Sirius and Peter are going to need to be convinced to help as well. That should be easy though, they want James and Lily to date as much as we do, if only to get James to shut the hell up about her every now and then. Wait. Sirius; he's saying something to me right now and I'm not paying attention.

"Becca? Hello?" He waved his hand around in front of my face a couple of times. "Are you in there?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I was just thinking about something."

"Well, as I was saying, I didn't tell you because I didn't think it would be relevant. I mean, it's not like I love her or I'm even going to marry her. The engagement is just a sort of formality to keep me in my parents good graces, if that's at all possible, until I can get what belongs to me and move out."

"Do you think she loves you?" I asked.

"I doubt it. Probably she's planning on having me 'accidentally' killed after the wedding some time. You know, stay married just long enough to have a claim on some of the family money. Apparently her family is in a bit of disrepair at the moment. She comes from old money, but her grandfather made some bad investments. My parents feel that marry their worthless son off to a girl from a good name will raise the family name at least."

"Ah. Well, that's interesting. Your family, your life, is like something out of a mystery novel. You know, like, you're the dead victim, now we have to find out which of the many people who hate you actually killed you." I rolled my eyes and continued dramatically "Was it the gold digging wife, the proud and embarrassed parents, the brother wishing to gain more inheritance, or one of the many scorned lovers? Perhaps I should hang on to you, you're a great source of information and plot twists if I were ever to find myself wanting to write a book."

Sirius chuckled "Perhaps, but I'd like to think you'd hang onto me anyways, for a reason more along the lines of love."

"Perhaps." I replied. I'm not ready to admit to being in love with anyone. Saying you're in love makes it real and making it real makes it harder to get over if and when you get hurt. What? I don't have a fear of commitment, I'm just cautious is all. I mean, we're just kids, how are we supposed to know what's love and what's infatuation? I gave Sirius a teasing smile and leaned in for a kiss. He leaned towards me as well and, just as we were about to touch, I pulled away, and jumped from my seat. Giving him a wink I walked to the door and opened it. He looked at me confused and amused at my actions. "Are you coming?" I asked and, without waiting for his eager response of 'yes', turned and skipped out the door and ran down the hall, Sirius hot on my heels.

I may be overcautious in the way of love, but flirting I have no qualms in doing often. Especially when I really like the guy I'm flirting with. In all honesty, I flirt with a lot of guys accidentally. The way I was brought up, teasing boys and wrestling with them, it was just the way we played, my cousins and I. Apparently teasing and wrestling with a guy is flirting when you're not related to them. Good thing someone told me that in first year after I made a fool of myself wrestling and messing around with Sirius, James and Remus. Nothing like getting the memo after the fact now is there?

Flirting is one thing, however, and love is another. I can admit I love Sirius now in a sort of platonic friendly kind of way, but whether I love him more as more than that, I won't, I can't admit to anyone, not even myself.