'And I can tell just what you want,

You don't want to be alone, you don't want to be alone.

And I can say it's what you know, but you've known it the whole time.'

Forming and Re-Forming Friendships

"Everything ok?" Lily asked as Riley closed the infirmary door.

"Yeah, it's all good. He accepted my apology about the whole family acceptance so I guess saving someone's life has it's perks."

Lily laughed, "Yeah, I bet it does."

The two girls made there way down to the Great Hall for lunch. Everybody was talking about Sirius' accident and many students went quiet when the noticed Riley enter. Some believed that she was trying to distract him so the bludger hit him and many believed the actual truth; she was warning him about it. Riley ignored the whispers she heard heading up the table. She just picked a space and sat down. She looked up at Lily who was still standing looking hesitant. Riley was about to ask her what was wrong when she sat down next to her, staring down at the plate that had just filled up. Riley looked up and saw Mary and Frank sitting across from them. She looked at Lily and gave her an apologetic look.

"Listen, Riley," she heard Mary say and looked at her. "I think that was really good that you helped Sirius out, despite your differences."

Riley shrugged but smiled nonetheless. "Thanks. At least someone thinks I done it from the goodness of my heart."

Mary nodded, smiling in response and went back to her dinner. Everyone ate their dinner in silence, an uncomfortable silence. Frank seemed to be talking to a few younger students but the three girls didn't speak a word. It never really bothered Riley as she never use to speak to Mary anyway but she could feel the tension off Lily, who was shoveling food into her mouth. Riley thought she could probably give James and Sirius a run for their money right now.

"Right," Lily announced, sitting down her cutlery. "I'm done. You coming?"

"Yeah, let me just finish this off and we'll go."

Riley quickly scooped up the last few bits of her mashed potatoes and stood up. She heard Mary utter a quiet 'goodbye' and she gave her a small wave in return. Riley and Lily walked back up to the common room in silence with only other students conversations filling their ears. When they arrived at the portrait, Lily gave the Fat Lady the password and they entered, revealing an empty common room.

"Lily, I'm really sorry about Mary. I didn't know she was there. I just sat down and I didn't look-"

"It's ok, Riley, honestly." Lily sighed and sat down on the couch in front of the fire. "I'm just annoyed that she doesn't talk to me because of a completely stupid reason!"

"I know, I know," Riley said.

"So why did Sirius want to keep you in the Hospital Wing for?" Lily asked.

"He just wanted to know why I saved him," Riley laughed. "He was quite confused by it all."

Lily laughed. "I can see why."

Riley smiled and stared into the fire. Today had been quite eventful. She finally stands up to Claudia by giving her a taste of her own medicine instead of giving her sarcastic comments back that would just give her all the more reason to knock Riley down. She then tries to protect her one and only enemy, Sirius and he ends up being completely nice and accepts her apology that was long overdue. Riley heard voices outside of the portrait and tore her eyes away from the fire and looked up.

"He would tell us if he did, Moony."

"He might not want to know because he would think that we would think it was just a joke and we would tell him to back off."

"And what are you on about?" Riley asked James and Remus as they entered the room, Peter standing behind them.

James and Remus shared a quick glance at each other.

"Nothing, doesn't matter." James said.

Riley raised an eyebrow, but didn't push on.

"So, Evans," James said sitting in between Riley and Lily, "What did you make of the game?"

"It was good Potter. Mary and Gordon scored some excellent goals."

"What about me?"

"I never really noticed you, my bad."

Lily smirked and got up and headed up the girls dormitories stairs.

"I'll be up in a few, Lils!" Riley called after her. "So when does Sirius get out of the Hospital Wing?"

"Sirius? First name basis now, are we?" James taunted, poking her ribs.

"Stop it," Riley laughed and slapped his hand away.

"Madam Pomfrey says if his arm is in better condition in the morning, he should be allowed out." Remus said, a smile playing on his face.

"What are you two smiling at?" Riley ask cautiously.

"They think that Sirius-"Peter started, but Remus stopped him by standing on his foot.

"Peter doesn't know what he's talking about," James said to Riley. "It's been a long day for him. He's too tired to know what he's saying."

Riley looked at the two boys suspiciously and went to say something but Remus cut her off.

"Mary is just away up there, maybe you should go up to make sure she and Lily don't murder each other."

"Right, g'night, boys." she said before running up the girls dormitory stairs. She went to pull the door open, but paused as she heard Mary talking.

"Lily, please, just listen to me- I'm sorry about what I said. I know, it was a stupid thing to get angry at you about-"

"Too damn right it was."

"I know it was. But…Ok, I like James. Alright, I said it and yes, I was jealous that he would always give you every bit of attention and the way you treated him back made me angry. It's just, you have this really great guy chasing after you and you just wave him off. I understand that it'll be annoying, I just think it's because I like him, I don't like him to be treated like that."

There was silence in the room. Riley was honestly shocked at the information. It had never entered her mind that anyone could actually like James. Everyone knew that he had his heard set on Lily and there was no way anyone would be able to change that.

"Can we please just go back to the way it use to be? I miss you," Mary pleaded.

"Ok, ok," she heard Lily say and that was when Riley decided it was time to enter.

As she opened the door, she saw the two girls in the midst of a hug. She acted surprised.

"Am I missing something, here?" she asked, half suspiciously, half laughing.

"Everything's been cleared up, that's all." Lily said. "Everything's back to normal."

"Oh, good." Riley fake smiled.

Somehow, she didn't like the idea of everything going back to 'normal'.

X

The next day, Riley spent the full day in the library, doing all of next week's homework that was due so far. Lily and Mary decided to do it in the common room, like 'normal'. Yes, Riley felt a little bit left out. All morning at breakfast the two girls had talked the whole time. Riley barely got two words in. Riley sighed and shut over her Defence Against the Dark Arts book and rolled up her parchment. She had finally finished. She took a few moments and looked around. She had sure missed spending every night in the library. Even when she didn't have homework to do she still liked to come and sit and look through the rows and rows of books.

"You ok there?"

Riley looked up and saw Sirius standing over her.

"Yeah, I was just thinking." she replied.

Sirius smiled and pulled out the chair across from her with his free arm and sat down. "Just thinking?"

Riley nodded in response.

"When did you get out, then?" Riley asked, nodding towards his sling.

"'Bout an hour ago. Thought I'd come here and get books for my homework though."

"Sirius Black doing homework?" Riley said in mock shock. "I never thought I'd see the day!"

"Hey! I resent that! I always do my homework…when I feel like it of course," he added, chuckling.

"Well what can I say?" Riley said. "I'm impressed. You're just out of the infirmary yet you plan on doing homework. Most people would use that as and excuse not to do it."

Sirius shrugged and reached for the book that was sitting beside Riley.

"What's this? Tales of Beedle the Bard?" he said, looking up at her and handing it back to her. "Good book."

"You've read it?" she asked, taking it from him.

"Of course I have! Every kid that grew up in the Wizarding World got this read to them. Have you never read it?"

"No, I've not. Back home, we had our own little set of witchcraft stories." she replied, absent mindedly playing with the charms on her bracelet.

"Really? What were they like? Are they in a book too?" Sirius asked.

"I'm not too sure, they probably are," Riley said. "My Grandfather would just sit and tell me them; he knew them by heart. I loved those stories. When I was eleven, for my birthday he gave me the charm bracelet," she said holding it up to show Sirius, "Each charm represents a story. He gave me it so I would never forget them."

Sirius nodded, clearly interested. He looked at her charm bracelet and counted five charms.

"Which charm is your favourite?" he asked her.

Riley took off the bracelet and handed it over to him.

"The tree. It's my favourite story."

"What's it about?" Sirius asked, handing her back that bracelet.

Riley smiled at him and started to put all of her things into her bag. "Maybe I'll tell you some other time. Right now, I think I'm going to go down to dinner. Are you coming?"

You guys should seriously love me right now. I don't think I'll be updating as quick from now on as I have other priorities at this moment, but I will be working hard on the story nonetheless!

Please review

Abbey xoxo