Chapter 14.

The following day, when Sirius Black returns from his night in the Hospital Wing, and interrupts Gryffindor Tower's Saturday Morning Post-Breakfast Lounging by sitting down very close to Louisa Reece, putting his arm around her shoulders and kissing her full on the mouth, the act is greeted by silence from the whole room.

Sirius looks at Lou, who has her eyes closed and is wearing a pained expression.

"You didn't tell anyone, did you?" he asks.

She shakes her head, eyes still closed. "I thought we could tell them together."

"Right. Well…I think we just did."

Lou buries her head in his shoulder, and mutters so that only he can hear. "This is mortifying."

"I know." He stares at the ceiling, determinedly avoiding eye contact with anyone.

"They're still not speaking. Why is no-one speaking?"

"I don't know. They're just staring."

"Sirius, don't expect me to be the kind of person who's always asking this of you, but please could you be my knight in shining armour and just say something to make them get on with their days?"

Sirius takes a deep breath and lowers his gaze to pan across the Common Room, where most of Gryffindor is sitting agog. "Yes," he says, loudly and clearly. "Lou and I are together. As of last night. Yes, very happy thank you. Feel free to discuss."

The gossip starts as a mere murmur, but soon grows into loud, distracted conversations, and Lou removes her head from Sirius' shoulder and smiles. "Thank you," she says, kissing him softly.

They glance across to the sofa opposite them, where James and Lily are sitting, staring and not speaking. James clears his throat.

"Lou, let's go to the library."

"What? Why?"

"Remus is there. We should tell him about this…development."

Lou looks at him doubtfully, before sighing and disentangling herself from Sirius. "Alright, then," she says.

"Might as well bring your Potions notes," adds James as an afterthought.

Lou laughs and swears at him.

When they've gone, Lily gets up and sits next to Sirius.

"I'm going to tell you what I told you before: hurt her, and I'll hurt you a hundred times more."

Sirius rolls his eyes.

"Because she's my best friend, Sirius, and if you're just messing her around, I'll -"

"- Shut up, please. Bloody hell, Lily."

She looks at him, dumbstruck.

"Do you know who James' best friend is?"

"Well, you, I suppose."

"And have you never wondered why I don't interfere in your relationship with him?"

"Because I don't have a reputation for breaking hearts?"

"You have a reputation for breaking his heart, which is surely all the more reason to be cautious."

"Then why?" Lily challenges. "Do you just not care?"

"James is one of my favourite people in the world. And I don't interfere in his relationships because he would resent me for it, and because I think he should be free to make his own decisions. If you make him happy, great. If you mess it up and make him miserable and it finishes then I will be there for him, and probably spend the rest of my life hexing you. But it's none of my business to try to talk him out of his relationship with you - however doomed I may or may not think it is - nor is it any of my business to try to frighten you away from him. Please show your best friend the same respect."

Sirius stands up and walks away, without looking back, and Lily sits there, with grudging respect.

Lou and James are walking to the library in silence.

"Spit it out," she sighs.

"What?"

"Whatever it is you want to say."

"Are you happy with him?"

"We got together last night," Lou replies. "He hasn't had a chance to make me unhappy yet."

"You deserve each other, you know."

"Why does that sound like an insult?"

James grabs her hand and they stand in the hallway, looking at each other. "It wasn't meant as one. Come here."

And they hug, and Lou feels like she and Sirius have at least one person's approval.

That evening, Sirius and Lou go for a walk around the school. Sick of being stared at by the people in the Gryffindor Common Room, they want some time to themselves, and find themselves strolling, hand in hand, along the Charms corridor.

"They'll stop staring soon," says Sirius, confidently.

"Jess won't."

"Don't worry about her, she'll get over it."

And Sirius pulls her close to him, and they share a slow, relaxed kiss.

"I thought you had better taste," says a voice.

They turn around, and see Sirius' younger brother, Regulus Black. He looks like a distorted version of Sirius - shorter, skinnier, with more pinched-looking features, and the crest on his robes is green, not red. He's pointing his wand at them.

Lou puts a calming hand on Sirius' arm. "And I thought you had better manners," she says, casually. "How memory deceives."

Regulus moves his wand, but before he can cast a spell, he's been Disarmed by Sirius. Lou catches the wand deftly. "If you walk away, I'll give you your wand," she says.

"You've got no right to tell me what to do, you half-blood freak," he spits.

Sirius makes a growling noise in the back of his throat, but Lou's hand keeps him calm.

"Funny," she says, slipping his wand into her pocket. "That's not what you said at Slughorn's Hallowe'en party. You were nice to me then, I thought you liked me." She pouts, as if she's disappointed. "Are you jealous that I prefer your brother?"

"Shut up!" says Regulus, pink spots appearing on his pale cheeks. "You really don't know when to just shut up, do you? I bet your mother was the same, I bet that's why she got killed, because she didn't know her place, and she just didn't -"

There's a large BANG, and Regulus is on the floor, his nose bleeding, the shadow of a bruise forming on his face. Sirius looks down at his wand. "I didn't mean to -"

"- someone will have heard," says Lou. "Get out of here, go back to the Common Room."

"Come with me."

"I'll be along in a minute."

They have a staring contest, which Lou wins, and Sirius slouches off down the corridor, looking mutinous.

Lou kneels beside Regulus and holds her wand up to his face.

"What are you doing?" he asks, genuine fear in his eyes.

"I'm going to fix you. It'll only take a minute." He relaxes a little, and she begins to heal his face.

"You don't have to act like this," she says casually, as if discussing the weather. "Whoever you're trying to impress - if they really care about you then they won't mind if you don't do what they say. And if they don't care about you, well, they're not worth impressing anyway, are they?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you don't," she soothes. "Just a piece of general advice, though. The only way to be happy is to say and do the things that feel right to you. Or, at the very least, don't say and do the things that your heart screams at you not to."

"You're talking nonsense."

"Sometimes nonsense is worth remembering. Your face is fixed now, by the way." She stands up and holds out her hand. He takes it, and she helps him up. "Don't be frightened of changing your mind," she says. "If you want help, just ask for it." She puts his wand into his hand.

"What's going on here?" says a gruff voice, and they turn to see the caretaker walking towards them. "Mrs. Norris heard a commotion."

"Not here, Mr. Filch," says Lou brightly. "Regulus and I were just taking a stroll, weren't we?"

Regulus nods.

"Right," says Filch. "Carry on, then. But if any mischief happens in this area, I'll know who to blame."

Lou smiles politely, and walks away.

"You healed my brother?"

Sirius isn't pleased. He's waited until the Common Room is empty to express his displeasure, and now he's pacing angrily in front of where Lou's sat.

"He deserves to have a broken face, after what he said to you. I can't believe you helped him, what were you playing at?"

Lou shrugs. "I wanted to speak to him."

Sirius is immediately suspicious. "What about?"

"I wanted to offer a helping hand…get him out of whatever he's getting involved in. I don't like that crowd he hangs around with."

"It's his own fault for hanging around with them."

Lou is unapologetic. "I just wanted to let him know that it wasn't his only option."

"He's weak."

"Yes."

"He's an idiot."

"Yes."

"Then why -"

Lou sighs. "Being a weak idiot doesn't mean he doesn't deserve help. It doesn't mean he doesn't deserve a second chance. Your brother might be evil. He might grow up to be a murderer and Dark Wizard more notorious than any other, but if there's even half a chance that he's acting like an idiot because he feels like he has to, then we need to make sure that he doesn't feel he has to."

Sirius sits down opposite her, puts his head in his hands, and groans. "You're so naïve."

"And you're a cynic. You're blinded by what he represents to you."

She gets up, walks over to him, and sits down beside him. "Are your family really that bad?"

He nods. She takes his hand. "You can talk about them to me, if you want."

Sirius is silent for so long that Lou thinks he isn't going to speak. She wonders if he might have fallen asleep, but then he starts to talk, holding her hand tightly but not looking at her face.

"My parents," he says, voice shaking, "don't know what love is. Or, if they do, they never loved me. They hated me, and they made sure I knew it." He breaks off, blinking fiercely.

"They abused you?"

He looks up sharply, meeting her eyes and shaking his head. "No. If you fight back, it's not abuse, it's just…a fight."

"I don't think it's that simple."

"It was for me. I shouted back at them. And when they hurt me, I tried to hurt them, too. Fighting back made me an idiot - a rebel and a troublemaker - but if I hadn't fought back, I'd've been a victim, and that'd be infinitely worse."

Lou squeezes his hand, and he continues.

"Regulus was different. I don't think they love him, but they always preferred him. I think he saw me fighting back, challenging them, and he saw how they hated me, how I was…punished, and he didn't want that to happen to him, so he did everything they asked and didn't question them. We still got on alright, though, me and him. When it was just us, we were just brothers, we had some good times."

He clears his throat, and stares into the fireplace.

"Then I came here, and got Sorted into Gryffindor. I managed to stay here for Christmas and Easter, but I had to go home for the Summer. It was horrible. It was more…brutal. Then the next year, Regulus came here, and he was in Slytherin. And I think that's when he really realised the difference, and how wrong I'd gone. We've been drifting apart - flying apart, really - since then."

"You left home, didn't you?"

Sirius nods.

"The Summer after Fourth Year, I spent the whole holiday locked in my room. Have you ever met my cousin, Andromeda?"

Lou shakes her head.

"One of the only close relatives I have who's actually decent. She's a good few years older than us, and she was disowned, ages ago, for marrying a Muggle. They had a baby, and that Summer, Fourth Year, I heard my parents joking about hurting that little girl…about killing her. Saying it would serve Andromeda right. It made me feel sick, I was so disgusted, so angry, and I shouted at them and told them how awful they were, how much I hated them, and they shouted back, and hurt me…I got Dad with a decent Bat Bogey Hex, and then I got locked in my room. Food once a day if I was lucky, insults shouted at me every time anyone walked past the door."

Lou wants to touch him, hold him, make everything okay, but she lets him finish his story first.

"The next Summer, my parents insisted I went home. James said to stay as long as I could bear it, then go to his house. The day I got home, they tried to lock me up again. I wouldn't go, we argued, I fought them. They used the Cruciatus Curse on me. Both of them, more than once. They'd never gone that far before. I grabbed my stuff, got on my broom and flew to James' house. Passed out on his doorstep, and he and his parents looked after me. Then last Summer I found my flat, and here I am."

Lou feels like crying. "Oh, Sirius," she says, "I never knew."

"Regulus stood by and watched it happen," he says, voice shaky. "So when you talk about giving him a second chance…I understand the thought behind it, but all I can think of is how I never got a second chance. How he never fought to get me out of a difficult situation."

She puts her hand to his face, pushing his hair behind his ear. He kisses her wrist softly.

"You shouldn't have had to go through that," she tells him. "Don't worry. I'll look after you."

And, for the first time in longer than he can remember, he lets the tears leak out of his eyes.