A/N: This chapter is inspired by When You Love Someone, by Bryan Adams. Beautiful piece. I'm going to take this opportunity to say a few things. Firstly, I'm sorry for the incredibly sporadic updates. I'm horrible, I know. Reviews speed things up, hint, hint. Secondly, I'm in college. That's my shit excuse for insanely sporadic updates, as well as having FAR too many stories going at once. THIRDLY, I've got this dual POV story I'm co-writing with xyellowconverse called Maybe I Know. It's on her page, you all should go check it out, and read the amazingness. It's Sirius Black/OC, great stuff. Shameless plug done. ON TO THE STORY!

Dreamsb223: (who does not allow private messages) I'm glad you like the story! I'm enjoying writing it! I'll have to edit the first chapter for continuity at some point, but I really enjoy this!

Weeks went by rather uneventfully for a while, and it was nearly the end of term. Jenny and Sirius had begun really talking about things for the first time since they had started at Hogwarts, realizing how refreshing it was to check their pride at the door and just bond over a massive bowl of ice cream and their mutual pain. He had also noted the regular occurrence of Jenny bringing Tien into the picture, talking about her casually.

He felt something for Tien, that was certain, but what? He didn't really know.

He was wandering the halls, thinking about his last talk with Jenny, when they had discussed the time his mother shoved a hot iron onto his back for embarrassing her at a family event. They couldn't even remember what he had done, but he had been twelve. It was good that they had started to really talk about things, although he had been reluctant to share all the details of his own past, thought he had been eager to hear hers. Why? He didn't like Jenny, even Jenny, to know his weaknesses. He wanted to be the one to protect her, but he didn't feel as able to do that if she knew how weak he truly was.

When he reached the second floor, he heard what sounded instantly to him like a struggle. Frowning, Sirius froze, listening for what sort of struggle it might be. Then, he heard harsh male voices and a frightened female voice. That was all he needed to get himself involved, wand at the ready.

Around the corner, Tien was being circled by a few Slytherin seventh years, one being David. His eyes narrowed as he drew closer, trying to come up with a plan on the fly.

"Come on, Vo," David drawled, "I know you're whoring yourself out to that blood traitor duo. It's time you learned your place… beneath me."

Sirius winced. Knowing David, he'd been working on that innuendo for weeks, which means this wasn't a random attack. He had targeted Tien for a reason. Because she was friends with the Marauders? Possible, but didn't seem like David's style… Because she was friends with Jenny? More likely… but why not Anna? Surely David would want to go for the closest friend, the most hard-hitting target… Maybe Anna was next.

"Oh, Avery," said Tien, braver than she ought to have been, but her eyes betrayed her. She was terrified. "There are few who truly belong beneath you. Not many are suited for it, but I'm sure I can think of someone vile enough. Carrow, for one. Tell me, did she enjoy it down there?"

David froze right in front of Tien, his wand at her throat.

"Why you little whore," he hissed. "On your knees, bitch. Now!"

Sirius saw a strange, distant look come over Tien's eyes and he was done waiting for an opening. That was definitely the Imperius Curse. Sure enough, she dropped to her knees as he turned the corner.

"Avery," Sirius said sharply, and David spun around, eyes glittering maliciously. "Lift the curse. Now."

"Well, well," said David, his lips curling into a cold, malicious smile, "if it isn't little Sirius Black. Too bad you can't get your mummy and daddy to make me leave you alone anymore. In fact, they'd probably welcome my involvement in your life. After all, I'm the son they always wanted you to be, isn't that right? Slytherin, top of my class, in all the right circles."

"Yeah," hissed Sirius, "when you're not torturing younger girls."

"Speaking of Jeneva," David snarled, "I've heard a new rumor on the grapevine, one that you'll find interesting. My parents have been looking into a marriage contract, keeping her bloodline pure. Want to know who with?"

Sirius's thoughts ran through all the pureblooded Slytherins their age, which would be bad, some of her family members, which would be worse, or a much older, rich pureblood, which was about the worst thing he could think of. Was her family really willing to sell her off to some rich old man in order to keep her in line?

"It just so happens," David continued, "that there's another very rich, very well-thought-of pureblooded family with a son who they worry is going to ruin their family line. Isn't that a lovely coincidence? His mother and my mother were just tickled to get started on negotiations."

The meaning of David's words sank into Sirius like something painful. Their parents were going to make them get married, Sirius and Jenny, the two black sheep. With the guardians involved, it would be easy to marry them off at sixteen, make it magically binding, and ensure that they were stuck together forever. He didn't know why, but it had never occurred to him that their parents would go so far.

"Just leave Tien alone," Sirius said, composing himself. "I wouldn't have thought you'd want her, anyway. I didn't think you'd dirty yourself with a Mudblood."

David seemed more than a little surprised to have heard Sirius utter the word, and Sirius felt unclean by saying it, but he knew it would sink the message in. Besides, before Hogwarts, it had been a regular part of his vocabulary, his and Jenny's. It wasn't as hard as he thought it would be to use it again. It felt wrong afterward, but in the moment it rolled right off the tongue.

"What are you going to do, Sirius?" David said, remembering himself. "You can't tell your mummy I'm being mean to you anymore to get me sent away. You can't protect Jeneva, what makes you think you can protect this little brat any better? Who's going to believe you over the Head Boy?"

"I say we show them that left arm of yours and see who they believe," Sirius hissed back. Just as he suspected, David's hand twitched toward his arm, as if to clutch the sleeve to the skin, keeping Sirius from revealing it. At least one of the Avery family had already sold their soul to the devil, and he suspected more would as time went on.

It was the sound of footsteps that saved him, saved Tien. David Avery hurriedly released Tien from the curse. When Professor McGonagall rounded the corner, she frowned at the scene before her.

"What's going on here?"

"I was passing through and caught these two behaving rather inappropriately in the corridor," David lied easily. "Points have been deducted. Nothing you need concern yourself with, Professor. It's under control."

"Very well, no lingering. I'm sure you've all got places to be."

"Yes," said Sirius quickly, knowing he wouldn't win a fight against David's entire group of thugs. "C'mon, Tien. Let's go."

She complied without question.

"What happened?" he asked her when they were near Gryffindor Tower. "Why were you walking alone?"

"I was looking for my bag," she said. "It's been missing and I thought I might have left it in the classroom or something. But I think you basically saw what happened. I got cornered by Slytherins."

Sirius sighed.

"Tien, we've got your bag. We were hiding it from you. C'mon, let's go get it."

Mental note to self, he thought, never, ever steal the school things of the girls. It leads them to wandering the halls alone.

Her bag was underneath his bed. For some reason, as he handed it to her, it hit him that she looked not at all herself, diminished and small, not the girl he and the boys usually joked and flirted with. He sat down on his bed and motioned for her to do so as well. She sort of fell back onto the bed, her eyes looking empty and ashamed.

"Are you all right?" he whispered, tentatively putting his hand over hers, which caused her to jump. He internally cursed himself for spooking her. This was harder than it looked, maybe he shouldn't have given Jenny and Remus such a hard time.

She didn't respond for a moment, but then she said, "Honestly, I'm not."

It was a soft admission, barely audible, but Sirius was sitting very close to her, actively straining his hears so as not to miss a thing. He felt a pang in his chest when the words did come out, and he didn't know why, but all he wanted to do was hold her.

They didn't say anything, but he tried wrapping an arm protectively around her waist like he did when he would comfort Jenny, and Tien cried into his shoulder. It was incredible how similar she was to Jenny, in size, shape, even some of her actions, but the way she was leaning into him felt different. With Jenny, it was like holding his precious baby sister, his best friend. With Tien, he wanted to wipe away her tears, scoop her up into his lap, and snog her senseless.

Somehow, his hand on her waist began to caress her of its own accord. Sirius couldn't have described the events of that afternoon, for everything from that moment on was a bit of a blur, but somehow, he did end up wiping away her tears, pulling her into his lap, and snogging her senseless. In fact, his shirt was on the floor and hers was half off when Remus burst into the room, gave a cry of shock and disgust, and rushed back out again, locking the door behind him. Sirius and Tien collapsed on the bed, laughing.

"Wow," Tien sighed. "That was even better than I thought it would be."

"That was," he muttered, but there wasn't anything to say. Nothing would describe how incredible it had felt to hold her, to kiss her. And so he kissed her again, gentler than before, and his head swam with desire, even with the chaste kiss he was giving. Incredible.

/-/

Jenny was stretched out on the floor of the common room, beside the fire, staring at the ceiling. Remus sat down on the couch, his feet at her head, and he looked down at her.

"Is the ceiling interesting?" he said, and she could hear the struggle to hide his smile through his voice.

"Actually," she said, "it's not so bad. I thought you were going up to your room."

"Ah, I was," he muttered. "It's occupied."

"So?"

"So… I'd rather not hang around and watch Sirius and Tien snog. As nice as it is to know that they're finally behaving like they ought to, it's just a bit awkward to be in the room while it's all happening."

"Wait, what?" Jenny cried, sitting up so quickly she felt dizzy, gripping Remus's knees to steady herself as she looked up at him. "What did you say just happened?"

"Ah, well," he said, blushing furiously, "there was clothing being removed when I was entering, so it was pretty intense. There was certainly snogging occurring, at the very least."

Jenny couldn't help herself, she laughed with joy, leapt to her feet, kissed Remus on the cheek, and dashed up to her room, where Anna was attempting to accomplish homework, and spread the news.

"So you'll never guess what Remus just told me," she said excitedly, hopping onto Anna's bed with a bounce.

"He told you he's given up his stupidity and that he's mad about you, wants to shag you silly and have dozens of little Remus-babies with you?"

"Ha, ha," Jenny laughed sarcastically. "No, he said he walked in on Tien and Sirius snogging and there was clothing being removed! I think our dear friends have made important progress! This could be it; they could be getting together soon. Oh, I just can't even get over how exciting this is!"

"That's lovely," Anna said honestly. "Now, would you mind leaving me to this debacle of an essay and we'll discuss this later? I'm a bit of a wreck at the moment."

Jenny rolled her eyes but made her way back down to the common room, where Remus was still sitting on the couch, touching his cheek absently and staring into the fireplace. She frowned and sat down beside him.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked, looking down at the fire.

Without looking up he replied, "I'm thinking about this girl."

Jenny bit her lip. There was no point in continuing that line of talk. She knew it couldn't lead to anywhere they could go, but she wanted so badly to hear what he thought of her, hear what his mind came up with.

"Tell me about her."

He moved a little closer to her, still not looking at her as his hand moved slowly toward her knee.

"She's beautiful," he breathed huskily. "She's funny and smart and brave, most of the time. And she may not be the best at everything she does, but she's absolutely perfect and I think she's the most beautiful, wonderful girl in the world. And even though nothing will ever happen and we could never be together, I want so badly to hold her and kiss her and tell her how beautiful and wonderful she is, because I know she doesn't hear it as often as she should. I'm not good enough to really be anything to her but someone who worships her from afar, and I guess I'll just have to spend the rest of my life doing that, but I wish she knew just how much I wanted her, how much I longed for her."

Jenny wondered what Elias would think of this scene when she told him all about it at her next counseling session, but more importantly, she wondered why she found it so incredibly distracting and intoxicating that Remus's rough hands were tracing shapes on the inside of her thighs, just above her kneecaps. She moved a little closer to him, her own hand brushing gently up and down on his thigh, just above his kneecaps.

"I'm sure she'd love to hear you say that," she whispered, her voice weaker than usual. "There's this guy… He – he's probably the smartest person I've ever known, although Sirius wouldn't be happy to hear me say it, because that kid thinks he's a bloody genius or something." Remus snorted. "Anyway, this guy… he's sweet and gentle, and even though he thinks he's some kind of monster, I know he would never hurt anyone. He cares too much. None of that matters to me, but what does matter is the way I feel when he looks at me, that tightness in my chest when he smiles. He's got such a gorgeous smile, bright and full and happy. I've never seen a more purely happy smile in my life. I wish he knew how much I cared about him, how badly I wanted to kiss away all of the pain and the scars and the fear, but I'm not any good for him. I carry too much baggage and my heart is all damaged and twisted and broken down. I couldn't give him the pure, unadulterated love he deserves."

There was a small sniff and Jenny looked over at Remus, who had a single tear rolling down his cheek. Biting her lip, she wiped it away with her thumb and let her hand linger just a little too long at his face. He looked up at her, his eyes glistening with unshed tears, his free hand moving to cup her cheek tenderly.

"I wish I could bring you all the happiness you deserve," he whispered. "If I could even bring you half what you deserved… but it doesn't matter. There will never be a man good enough for you, but I'm sure there's someone better than me."

She wasn't sure when their faces had gotten so close together, but they were making their same mistake, their hot breath mingling, signaling that their lips were far too close, both pairs parted slightly in anticipating of something that wasn't supposed to happen. They had promised each other this would never happen again and here they were, sitting on a couch in the Gryffindor common room, a fraction of an inch from their lips meeting, eyes locked together, dark with longing and wet with tears. Maybe if she closed her eyes, metaphorically looked the other way, she could have this one moment of happiness and everything would be fine. Maybe she could wipe his memory, pretend like it was all a dream.

But even as she could taste his breath she knew she would never be able to turn away once she had gotten a taste, not be able to say no to him should the chance present itself again. For both of their sakes, she needed to stop this now, she needed to back away, make her excuses, leave the room. And yet… she didn't move an inch, and they hovered there, on the brink of a kiss, their hearts racing, their breathing heavy, fighting their separate internal battles, dying to move forward, anxious to back away and yet unable to move at all.

The portrait hole was uncovered and in walked James and Peter, who looked at the scene and James said, "Bloody hell, will you two just snog already?"

Jenny could feel the blush cover her face as she jumped to her feet and ran upstairs, ignoring Remus's calling after her and James's shouts of protest. She wasn't going to hurt him like that. She loved him too much.

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to stellinator, who's adding it to their favorites was the thing that tipped me over the edge of finishing it. Thank you for your love, stellinator! I hope you enjoy!