Sirius just stood there for a very prolonged moment, simply staring at Marlene with a blank look on his face.
"Er…what?" Sirius finally asked.
"I said," Marlene stated pointedly, resisting the urge to glare at him in frustration (because, really, what would that solve?), "That I love you."
"What?" Sirius repeated, the single word appeared to be the only word he could manage to form at the moment.
Marlene barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes at him in time.
"Is there something wrong with your hearing?" Marlene questioned. "How many times am I going to have to say that I love you before it sinks in and you understand what I'm saying?"
"You don't love me," Sirius finally managed to get out. "You can't."
Marlene merely rose an eyebrow at this. "And would you care to enlighten me as to why not?"
"Because…you're Marlene," Sirius stated. "You're my best friend..."
Marlene let out a very un-ladylike snort of laughter at this. "That's all you've got?"
"You can't love me," Sirius repeated. "You're joking."
Marlene narrowed her eyes at this. "Why is it so hard for you to accept that I love you? Because I really do, Sirius; it's not something I would joke about. I'll be the first to admit that maybe I didn't exactly act like that recently, but it's true. I love you Sirius, and I can't stand seeing you with Joscelind. She's only using you."
At that, Sirius finally seemed to regain his focus. "How would you know? It's not like you've even tried getting to know her. Besides, Joscelind and I are very happy together."
"You haven't even known her for three months!" Marlene practically exploded. "And how on Earth was I supposed to get to know her when all she did when you weren't around was act like a stuck up bitch?"
"Excuse me?" Sirius repeated slowly.
"You heard me," Marlene snapped. "You only think you know Joscelind, but it's all an act; she's a completely different person when you aren't around. And speaking of that, what does she tell you about her team? Because I've heard some interesting stories from Milo about how friendly your 'girlfriend' is with certain male members of the team."
"Stop it, Marlene," Sirius commanded, sounding slightly strained, causing Marlene to see that, although he was still refusing to accept what she was saying, her words were having an effect on him. "Stop making all of this up. Joscelind isn't like that."
"Not when you're around," Marlene countered. "And I'm not going to stop, Sirius. You need to see the truth. Joscelind is just using you, and everyone but you can see it. Why do you think no one ever wants to spend time with you anymore? It's because you're being such a dense idiot, and nothing anyone does can get you to shut up about her. But I care about you, Sirius. And I don't want you to get hurt, though I suppose it's a bit late for that, even if you can't see it yet."
But Sirius was shaking his head as Marlene spoke, not accepting a single thing she said.
"Why can't you just be happy for me, Marlene?" Sirius asked.
"Happy?" Marlene repeated incredulously. "Have you been paying attention to anything I've said? You're bloody mental, Sirius!"
"I've been listening," Sirius replied. "I just don't believe you. Jos wouldn't do that to me."
"Why can't you see what's right in front of your face, Sirius?" Marlene exploded, which, she was pleased to note, caused him to jump slightly in surprise.
"Because you're being ridiculous!" Sirius recovered enough to yell back at her. He suddenly pushed himself away from the desk he had been leaning against up to this point. "You know what? This isn't helping at all; it's a waste of time. I'm leaving."
And without another word he strode from the room.
"Walking away won't change anything!" Marlene couldn't help but holler after him. "She's still using you!"
Once his footsteps had faded away, Marlene chose to let out her frustration by kicking the closest thing to herself that she could find. Unfortunately for her sake, however, that thing turned out to be the stone wall. After letting out a few choice expletives (which all happened to be in Gaelic anyway, so it wasn't as if any professor who might be within earshot could prove what she had said), Marlene too exited the room, limping as she went.
Figuring that Sirius would have gone back to the common room, Marlene contemplated going to hide out in the library until dinnertime. However, all of the time she had spent with Regulus lately had obviously rubbed off on her, because she felt incredibly guilty at the thought of any amount of time in the library without any of her homework to do. So, steeling her resolve, Marlene slowly made her way back to the Common Room, dreading what (or rather who) she would find there, after her conversation with Sirius had spiraled so out of control.
She needn't have worried, though. As it turned out, Sirius hadn't returned to the Common Room after leaving Marlene behind in the empty classroom. Of course, on the downside, this also meant that she would have to be the one to explain to all of their friends what had just gone down.
"Marlene!" Dorcas, whose gaze had been focused solely on the back of the Fat Lady's portrait ever since it had closed behind Sirius, cried upon spotting Marlene, causing James, Remus, Lily, and Mary to turn around as well. "Is everything alright?"
"Where's Sirius?" James wanted to know.
"Everything is just peachy," Marlene replied sarcastically. "And I'm not Sirius' keeper; I have no idea where he went."
She made to walk back over to the corner where her friends were seated, but a spike of pain that had steadily been building up as she made her way back to the Common Room shot up her leg after one step. As she faltered and a look of intense pain flashed across her face, James immediately went into overprotective Quidditch captain mode, while Dorcas switched to healer mode. Both hurried over to her and, as they guided her to the nearest armchair, Marlene finally noticed how much the Common Room had emptied out since she had last been in it. It must be closer to dinnertime than she had thought…
"What's wrong?" Dorcas asked, pulling her wand out from under her robes. "What hurts?"
"It's my foot," Marlene pointed at the right one. "I think I may have broken a toe…or several."
"What did you do, Marlene?" James demanded. "We have a very important Quidditch match next week! We can't afford to have you out with an injury."
"Last time I checked, feet weren't really important when it came to flying and hitting bludgers," Marlene said with a slight wince as Dorcas attempted to remove her shoe. "Besides, we're playing Hufflepuff. It isn't that important. You know as well as I do they haven't had a good stock of players to choose from in years."
At this, James' eyes widened in alarm. "Not important?" He repeated. "What's wrong with you? All Quidditch matches are important!"
"What did you do?" Dorcas demanded once Marlene's foot had been liberated, only to reveal that three of her toes had swollen up and were now a lovely blackish shade of purple.
"I kicked a wall," Marlene answered with a shrug.
"A wall," Dorcas repeated in disbelief. "What did the wall ever do to you?"
"Absolutely nothing," Marlene replied. "In fact, all it did was stay exactly where it's always been. It didn't walk away from me," A hint of anger had crept into her voice at the end and she took a small, calming breath before continuing. "Which is probably why my foot ended up like this…"
Dorcas merely gave her friend a piercing look and Marlene, for her part, just stared back unblinkingly. Dorcas seemed to find whatever it was she was looking for in Marlene's expression, however, because she nodded to herself with a knowing look on her face, before turning her attention back to Marlene's blackened and swollen foot.
"Well, once you're done with that," James said pleasantly, his agony over Marlene's lack of enthusiasm for the coming match apparently forgotten, "I suggest we head down to dinner. Perhaps Sirius is already in the Great Hall…"
At the mention of Sirius' name, Marlene quickly lost interest in the conversation taking place around her and instead focused on her foot. As Dorcas tapped it softly with her wand and the swelling began to go down, Marlene couldn't help but think that this wasn't how she had envisioned things turning out when she had first come up with her grand plan of revenge.
Marlene had finally admitted the truth; she had told Sirius that she loved him.
He hadn't believed her.
Had she been wrong to think that he would feel the same way? Had she doomed their friendship even more with her announcement?
Marlene wasn't normally the type of girl who let her feelings for a boy control her life, but Sirius had always been different. Outside of her family, he was the most important person in Marlene's life. He was and always would be her oldest and best friend, no fight could ever change that. She loved him, but now he apparently wanted nothing to do with her.
Marlene felt as if her life was spiraling out of control and, unlike her toe, there would be no quick fix.
Oh, do you still feel like you know what you're doing
I don't think you do, I don't think you do