A/N: This chapter is inspired by Never Say Never, by The Fray. Sorry about the delay on the last chapter. As some of you have noticed, I have a lot of projects, sometimes I fall in and out of inspiration, and sometimes life happens. I hope I still have faithful readers. We'll see if this chapter makes it out in a timely manner. ;)

-J

Jenny, Anna, and Tien settled down in a compartment with Sirius and Peter, the awkwardness almost too much to take. Finally, Anna said, "All right, spill, Sirius. How did Potter manage to get the badge?"

Sirius shrugged, petting Tien's head, which was resting in his lap.

"Your guess is as good as mine. According to Dumbledore, who has dinners on Fridays with the Potters in the summer which is, let me tell you, really weird, he was impressed with James's maturity in handling the events of last year. I have no idea what that means, but James was happy. Gives him more time to try to prove to Evans how perfect they are for each other, I guess."

"Me," Jenny said softly, sighing and looking out the window. "He meant how James dealt with me."

The mood instantly dampened in the little compartment and everybody looked at their shoes almost instantly. There was a strained sort of silence until James, Remus, and Lily returned back to the compartment.

"Girls, come on," Lily said in a stiff, shaky sort of voice. "There's not enough room for all of us. We should find our own compartment."

"What, and leave Tien to fend for herself?" Anna gasped with a dramatic squeak. "Lily, what sort of friend are you?"

"Yeah, what sort of friend are you?" Sirius countered teasingly. "Depriving me of my darling Jenny, Lily, that's not on."

"Let's stay, please," Jenny whispered. "Please, Lily."

Lily pouted, but she didn't say no. People rarely denied Jenny anything anymore, always afraid she would do something stupid.

"But where will everyone sit?"

"Oh, we've got laps," Tien said with a click of her tongue." She moved over to sit on Sirius's lap. Remus and Lily had seats, then, but there was no room for James.

"We're still short one," James said seriously. "Who else is sitting with somebody?"

"Oy, Jenny, Remus's lap looks lonely," Tien said jokingly, but Jenny felt her stomach clench angrily. It wasn't funny. It wasn't all right.

Without a second thought, Jenny excused herself, and took a brisk walk down the corridor, pausing to catch her breath and bite back her tears.

"Jeneva?"

No, the last thing she wanted was Regulus, his soft, concerned voice.

"Jeneva, come here, please."

She knew she had to go to him, for what would happen, what would he tell their parents, if she didn't? She slid into the compartment and he closed the door and she felt incredibly claustrophobic.

"Why are you alone, Regulus?" she whispered, wanting to run away. "I would have thought you would have been surrounded by your Slytherin cronies."

He shrugged.

"I needed a bit of air. I think that's something you can understand. Tell me what's wrong, Jeneva."

"Jenny," she whispered. "Jenny. If I have to marry you, I don't want you to call me by that awful name the rest of our lives."

"I think it's a beautiful name," he whispered. "But all right. Tell me what's wrong, Jenny."

For some reason, it didn't feel as bad as she thought she would, telling him. He already knew all of her secrets, and she had forgotten what it felt like to just tell somebody what weighed on her.

"Tien was teasing me about Remus again," she sighed. "I don't know if you can understand, Regulus, but I love him so much, and it's so hard to push him away, because all I want is to be as close to him as possible all of the time, but I can't afford to give in because it'll only make things worse. It's not like I can change my future. But it hurts, Regulus."

She hardly noticed she was crying until Regulus wrapped his arms around her, gently brushing away her tears.

"I don't really understand," he said honestly. "But I'm trying to. I can see that it hurts you, and I don't like that. I don't like seeing you cry. I never did. Is he worth your tears?"

Jenny buried her face in Regulus's chest, surprised at how comforting he was being.

"Yes," she whispered. "Yes, he is."

"I should probably be getting back," he whispered. "But if you need to talk, let me know. All right?"

Jenny nodded, curling up on the seat as Regulus kissed the top of her head and left. She continued to wipe away the tears that rolled down her cheek and the door slid open again to reveal Remus.

"Remus," she said, looking down at her hands again, wishing she didn't look like she had so obviously been crying.

"Can I sit?" he asked softly.

She shrugged, not sure if she wanted him to… No, she knew she wanted him to, but she didn't know if it could ever be misconstrued as a good idea. He sat, right in the seat Regulus had just left open. So close to her and yet… yet not a single part of them was touching. There was a very tangible gap between them and all she wanted to do was cross that tiny distance and curl up into his arms.

"I'm sorry about Tien," he said softly. "You know how she is sometimes. She can speak before thinking with the best of them. I... I saw Regulus leaving the compartment..."

"Don't worry," Jenny snorted. "We weren't snogging, if that's what you think. He saw me walking away looking upset and asked me to come talk to him. He's actually sort of nice. He seems to care about me, anyway."

"That's good," Remus said, although from his voice she wasn't sure he believed in the words he was saying. "I wouldn't want you married to someone who didn't care about you or treat you well."

Jenny winced, nodding. From the pain he didn't do a very good job of masking in his voice, she knew it was killing her to think that she was marrying someone else. She didn't feel too happy about it, either, but they'd known that it had to happen that way.

"Remus," she sighed, feeling another tear sneak down her cheek, "I don't think it'll be enough."

His hand shaking hesitantly, it slowly reached up and gently wiped the tear from her cheek, but it stayed there, warm and tender, just lingering on her skin.

"What more could you want?" he whispered.

"You," she said, the word just falling off her tongue without her permission and she flushed, seeing the pained longing in his eyes. More tears fell from her eyes and she let out a sob she couldn't hold in and Remus's tenuous hold on his propriety slipped away. He wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly as she cried into his shoulder.

Regulus could care about her all he wanted, but he would never love her. He would never be Remus. And no matter how well he treated her, it would never be what she wanted.

She wanted to say that she loved him, but he already knew and if she said it out loud... she might not be able to stop herself from doing something stupid.

"I should probably be patrolling," Remus said awkwardly.

"Please don't go," she choked as he made to untangle himself from her, and he looked down at her with the look of someone undergoing and intense personal battle. If he stayed, they might cross lines they would regret. If he didn't, he would leave her alone, crying, in a compartment.

Apparently, his Gryffindor chivalry won out, because he didn't move to leave. They sat there for the remainder of the train ride, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her waist. Jenny didn't want the train ride to end. For the first time in her life, she didn't want to go to Hogwarts. She wanted to take Remus and run away somewhere, find someplace where no one would be able to follow them and hurt them.

But there was the full moon and Celia to think of, so when the train came to a stop, she didn't even mention the half-baked plan to leave their things and just run away into the woods near Hogsmeade and work from there.

They met their friends on the platform and there were looks exchanged between several people at the sight of Remus and Jenny coming out of the train together. When the girls got Jenny in a carriage alone, there were massive amounts of squealing and she just rolled her eyes.

"How was the snogging?" Anna said eagerly. "I've always thought he'd be excellent at snogging."

Jenny raised an eyebrow at this bizarre admission and said, "There was no snogging."

"Quit holding out on us," Tien moaned. "We know there had to be something, what with you being together so long and all..."

"No snogging," Jenny whispered, looking down at her hands. "Lots of crying. He found me crying and then couldn't leave me alone like that, being the gentleman he is. Nothing happened. Please, just drop it. I don't want to talk about Remus."

Ever the considerate one, Lily switched the topic to how disgusted she was that James had been made Head Boy, and what Dumbledore must be smoking. Jenny kept her gratitude to herself, staring out the window sadly and wondering how Remus was weathering the same set of questions in his own carriage.

At the feast, she could feel three sets of eyes on her. Regulus, Sirius, and Remus were all watching her, but Jenny just stared at her food. It was her last back-to-school feast, the last time she would go back to Gryffindor Tower with her friends after a summer away, the last time Remus would give her the password just as an excuse to talk to her.

Which he did, of course, and Jenny just nodded, not looking at him, not saying all of the half-jumbled things she wanted to say to him.

All the girls could talk about was James as Head Boy and N.E.W.T.s that night. They discussed their summers, but strategically didn't ask Jenny about hers. They even neglected to include her in the conversation about what they all wanted to do when they left Hogwarts. Jenny was going to be a trophy wife for a Death Eater. It wasn't the sort of thing that lent to a positive conversation to start out the new school year.

Sirius would want to talk with her in the morning, Jenny knew. She didn't want to talk. She wanted to hide forever.

"I'm going to bed," she said, ignoring the surprised and concerned looks of her friends.

She went up to her room, curled up in a ball, and cried herself to sleep, clutching the triquetra so tightly that it had left an imprint on her hand when she woke up in the morning to find Lily and Anna sitting at the foot of her bed, watching her, concerned. When they saw that she was awake, they began their onslaught.

"Don't worry," Anna assured her. "It's just us."

"Um," Jenny managed to say.

"She means we're the only ones in the room," Lily said to clarify.

"That's lovely," Jenny said slowly. "Why are you on my bed, staring at me?"

"What happened with Remus?" Anna demanded. "What happened over the summer? What are you keeping from us?"

"I'm not keeping anything from you, nosy," Jenny snapped. "I would appreciate it if you'd leave me alone, all of you! Next thing you know, Sirius will be locking me in a room until I answer all his asinine questions. Now get out of my way, I want a shower."

She pushed past them as she headed for the shower and heard Lily whisper, "We should have thought of locking her in a room."

Jenny rolled her eyes, getting into the shower, knowing that Lily, at the least, would still be sitting on her bed when she got back out, waiting to demand her answers once more. She couldn't understand why they couldn't just leave her alone, her and Remus. They were having a hard enough time the way things were without the constant prodding of everybody who had no business prodding. She let the water rush down her skin, cold and unforgiving as her pain.

To her surprise, Lily was not in the dormitory when Jenny finished her shower, so Jenny dried her hair and put on her school clothes, dreading breakfast, but knowing that Professor McGonagall would take no excuses for tardiness at the Gryffindor table, seventh year or no, in picking up her timetable.

So Jenny made her way down to the Great Hall, dragging her feet and praying that she could just curl up in her bed and sleep, clutching the triquetra instead of wearing it.

But wearing it wasn't so bad, she thought with a smile, thinking of the beautiful dreams it had brought her. It allowed her to be with Remus, to have him hold her and kiss away all of her fears and pain. Jenny had wondered whether it might not have some sort of charm on it, something he'd done to ensure those dreams, but she hadn't tested it because she'd decided that it didn't really matter why it brought the dreams, just that as long as she wore it she never felt apart from him. The world could fall down around her and she wouldn't feel as afraid because Remus was protecting her, in a way.

Lily did slip into the curtains that Jenny had pulled around her and she raised her eyebrows expectantly at Jenny.

"Are you all right?" she said finally. "You know Tien and Anna mean well."

"Of course I know that," Jenny said softly, caressing the triquetra in her hands and wishing she could go back to the train where she really had Remus's arm wrapped around her, where his scent was so powerful around her that she could have gotten high off it.

"Is Remus... I mean, how was he, you know, when you were talking and whatnot?"

Jenny shrugged.

"I don't know anymore, Lily. Every time I think about being with Remus, it's like I can't think of anything else, and he's so closed off about it... I don't know what he's thinking. If it's hurting him like it's hurting me, I can't tell."

"I think he is," Lily said, pursing her lips thoughtfully. "When you left the compartment, I thought he was going to cry. And he talks about you sometimes, I think without even realizing what he's doing, and he sounds like he wants you so much that not being with you is causing him physical pain."

"I hate this," Jenny whispered, clutching the triquetra even tighter, so that it dug into the skin of her palm. "I hate hurting and I hate hurting him, but there's nothing else I can do. This is the only way."

"I suppose you can't run away?" Lily said hesitantly. "You know, like Sirius did."

Jenny shook her head sadly.

"No," she sighed. "No, Sirius tried to get me to run away when he did, but it never would have worked. I need to stay, for Celia. And we can't take Celia, because that would be kidnapping and then they'll never let us be."

"I had no idea how bad it was for you," Lily sighed. "I still don't think I really understand. When we graduate, though, you can leave them then?"

"I don't know," Jenny said, shrugging again. "Probably not, unless I end up married to someone they've approved of, because then I'm still not out. You know, when I marry Regulus."

With a frown, Lily whispered, "I wish you didn't have to. It doesn't seem right. He doesn't love you. You don't love him."

"Oh, Lily," Jenny sighed, a small smile playing at her lips as she lay back on the pillows. "It's never that simple."

Lily didn't like being called out for her naivety, Jenny knew, but she didn't say anything about it as she kissed Jenny's cheek, told her that they'd talk more in the morning, and hurried over to her own bed, leaving Jenny alone with her triquetra once more, her little piece of Remus.

After a moment of gazing at the beautiful triquetra in the near-darkness, Jenny pressed the warm metal to her lips and tried to imagine that it was his skin, what she so longed to feel against her lips and taste once more.

It wasn't quite as wonderful, because it wasn't real, but she did appreciate the fantasy of it, the memory of their one kiss that she'd held onto so tightly that she wasn't sure what was fantasy and what was memory anymore. She ached for a piece of him, just a taste of his lips, just a brush of his hand, but he was like a drug for her. The more of him she got, the more she craved and the harder it was to do anything but want him and dream about how much she wanted him.

Jenny found her eyes beginning to close and she blinked, desperate to stay awake. Time passed so unpredictably in dreams. There was never any guarantee that she would spend more than a few brief minutes with Remus in dreams, but with the triquetra in her hand, any moment awake was a moment with Remus, even if it wasn't quite as real in her mind.

She knew she couldn't fight sleep too much longer, though, as she felt her eyes fluttering closed for what was probably the last time that night.

"I love you," she breathed into the close air of the night. "I love you so much, Remus."