"You were my conscience, so solid, now you're like water and we started drowning... Call me a traitor. I'm just collecting your victims and they're getting stronger. Well, you've thought of strength and solutions... but you're gonna lose it."

- Paramore, Monster

After seeing for myself just how ridiculous Lily had been, I was fuming. I wasn't going to speak to Lily, but that didn't mean I couldn't exact my revenge to a small extent. I marched down to the common room like I promised Cherry, but I marched right up to Lily, smacked her hard across the face in front of everyone and ignored her indignant squawking and grabbed Remus's hand, dragging my smirking boyfriend out of the portrait hole.

When we made our way to the nearest deserted classroom he quickly sat on a desk and pulled me onto his lap, kissing my lips gently.

"What was that for?" I asked, bewildered.

"To keep you from pacing," he whispered, obviously reading my mind. "I shouldn't say this, but that was incredibly sexy."

"What?" I murmured, confused as he began placing kisses on my neck.

"Hitting Lily," he moaned. "I don't know what all this rage is about, but it's sexy."

"Remus," I sighed, "as much as I want to, we can't do this right now. We have a crisis."

"No," Remus said firmly. "No, the only crisis is that you have far too much clothing blocking me from my pursuit of your pleasure."

I shivered.

"Remus, having sex after a funeral is one thing. Having sex after Cherry and Sirius break up is something else entirely."

He laughed bitterly and said, "You know, I always knew being a Marauder meant unnatural closeness, but I'd not anticipated how bizarrely interconnected our sex lives would become."

"That's the problem," I groaned. "Lily had a list of rules for Cherry, conditions by which she didn't split Cherry and Sirius . Over fifty rules, Remus!"

"What were the rules?" Remus asked patiently.

"No detentions."

"Fair."

"No insulting people."

"Hypocritical, but not totally out of line."

"Has to be polite."

"Again, hypocritical, but..."

"No actively drawing negative attention to herself during class."

"Well, that explains a lot."

"No wearing her hair down during lessons."

"All right, admittedly harsh."

"No using words that aren't Latin-based."

"Okay, I see your point," Remus sighed. "But you said they broke up. So it seems like everything's settled. I mean, slapping Lily across the face was fitting, but that's the end of it."

"No," I cried. "It's not the end! Cherry is miserable and Sirius is miserable and they're probably both curled up in balls somewhere. And Remus, I'm really worried about Sirius. He's blaming himself for everything lately and I think he's going to take this especially hard. You remember last time they tried being apart. They need each other, Remus. They're only punishing themselves."

"But what are you going to do about it?" Remus pressed. "They're not going to fall for being locked in a room this time. Let's face it, Ali, sometimes things just don't last. I mean, maybe it just wasn't going to last anyway."

I blinked at him.

"You're right,"," I said softly, although the anger was boiling within me. "These things don't often last. In fact, they usually don't. Like us, we probably won't last."

His head jerked to meet my eyes, his own amber eyes golden and wide with anxiety.

"No," he choked. "No, that's not true. You don't mean that."

I got off his lap, shaking my head already feeling sick.

"I feel like we're kidding ourselves, Remus," I lied. "I mean, there's a war on and you'll always be friends with James and Lily whether I'm speaking to them or not. It just can't work, in the long run."

I started to walk away, but Remus scrambled to his knees, hugging my legs tightly to his chest. I could feel tears falling from his eyes to the back of my calf.

"No," he said frantically. "No, Ali, please don't leave me. I'll never leave you. Forget the war, forget Lily and James. We'll leave the country. I'll never speak to them again. I'll do whatever you want, just don't do this. I love you! Ali, please."

I sighed heavily, my heart broken. He'd gotten the point and then some. Pushing it further would have been cruel to both of us.

"Remus," I whispered, sitting on the cold stone floor right where I was and wrapping my arms around his neck. "I'm not going anywhere, darling. I love you. I'm just showing you how Sirius is feeling, how Cherry is feeling."

"No," Remus said, grasping me tightly to him like he thought I might disappear. "No, they can't even feel a fraction of this bad."

"But they do," I insisted, petting his hair soothingly as my vision blurred. "Remus, I need to do something. They need each other like you and I need each other."

Remus was smelling my hair, kissing my neck, and probably hardly paying attention to the words I was saying, but I figured he probably got the point.

I couldn't deny the attention he begged for at that point, especially after I had been so cruel, but once his demands were satisfied we cuddled in the corner of the classroom and began brainstorming how to put things back together again.

"I still say the key is to not force it," Remus sighed. "If you push too hard, it might just push them further apart. That's the last thing we want."

"I know," I muttered into his shoulder. "I just can't figure out where that line is. I don't want to under-do it, either."

Before we could discuss where the line might be, however, James Potter rushed through the door, cringing that we were probably nude under the blanket Remus had conjured, then shaking his head as if to refocus.

"Remus, Sirius needs you," James snapped. "He's huddled in a ball on his bed acting like a baby. I don't know what to do."

Remus sighed. He kissed the side of my head and said, "C'mon, love, let's work on Sirius first."

James growled, "I said you, not her. Every time she's involved things get worse."

Completely ignoring the fact that he had no clothes on, Remus leapt up and charged James, pressing him against the wall and punching him hard across the face. My eyes widened.

"You know what the problem is here?" Remus growled dangerously. "The problem is your girlfriend, or rather fiancée, making a big fuss about Cherry and Sirius. Cherry hit her limit, as I'm sure you're aware of and I'm sure Sirius isn't going to forgive either of you for ruining their relationship if Ali and I can't clean up this mess, so keep that in mind the next time one of you gets a plan against Cherry. I guarantee it's not worth the cost of your best friend. Now leave so Ali can get dressed."

James, obviously quite as stunned as I was, bumbled out of the room and Remus turned back to me.

"You punched him," I said.

"Yeah," Remus admitted.

"I hate to say this but that was incredibly sexy," I said breathlessly.

Remus grinned, making his way back to me and kneeling, nude, at my feet, leaning forward to kiss me.

"I'll keep that in mind," he murmured. "But as much as I'd like to act on that statement, we need to help Sirius."

"I know," I whined. "Help me dress."

It took well longer than it should have, but I didn't exactly mind. Remus made getting dressed just as fun as getting undressed. But Sirius needed us so as soon as we were dressed we rushed to his bedside where he truly was curled up in a ball, sobbing.

"She left me!" Sirius cried the moment we sat down. "Cherry left me and it hurts so badly! Make it stop hurting."

"You know whose fault this is, don't you?" I sighed. "If Cherry had been selfish about this and made you choose, what would you have done?"

Sirius blinked at me dejectedly, sniffling a few times before saying, "I don't know."

"Well, at least you didn't choose James flat out," I sighed. "That's something."

"If I ever had to choose," Remus said softly, "between anything and Ali, I'd choose Ali every time. But I just punched James, so maybe he's not as important to me as he is to you."

"You punched James?" Sirius muttered, bewildered.

"The point is," I said, "Cherry's devastated. I know that if we made her see how much you need each other, how miserable you both are, and prove she's a priority, of yours , even over James, I know we could get you back together."

"You think so?" Sirius said eagerly, sitting up a bit and hastily wiping the tears from his face.

"Absolutely," I assured him. "I have a question, though, that I need you to answer and it's sort of personal, but if the answer's good we can work with it."

Sirius winced and I knew he knew what I was talking about.

"Cherry told me," I continued, "that you weren't sleeping together, which, as you can imagine, I find odd. The other thing is, she didn't seem incredibly thrilled about it, so I suppose it was your decision. Why?"

Sirius sighed heavily, looking down at his hands before answering, "I guess I sort of got the idea that sex was what caused all the problems in the first place and I didn't want to lose her again, so I thought it was a way to show her how important she really is to me, not just how sexy I find her."

I decided that was something, and although it had been rather stupid of him, he'd meant well. But the rest of it was a disaster, and with an hour of talking to Remus and Sirius, I still had no idea where to begin.

"We'll keep thinking," I promised Sirius. "I'm not resting until you two are together again, Lily be damned. Don't worry."

But ideas were slow at coming. Several days later, I still didn't know what I was going to do. After all, Remus was right. Locking them in a room together wasn't going to work. There was too much hurt, and I'd already done it once.

Ashley and I were spending a particularly nice day on the grounds and I decided to enlist her advice-giving expertise as a kindred spirit. We'd flown around the lake for a while before tiring and we'd retired at some trees on the edge of the forest to talk and rest.

"So you know that Sirius and Cherry broke up," I said casually.

Her eyes lit up and she teased, "Now, Ali, no gossiping!"

I rolled my eyes, ripped a handful of grass, and tossed it at her lazily.

"I'm trying to get your help, not gossip." I chastised. "I can't seem to think of how to make them sit down together and talk. Last time I locked them in a room, but they won't fall for it twice."

"No," she agreed solemnly. "No, I don't suppose they..."

Ashley sat up a bit, frowning at some people in the distance.

"Quick, Ali," she hissed. "Slytherins. Into the tree before they see us."

With her broom in hand, Ashley quickly scrambled up a nearby tree as if it were something she'd been doing her whole life.

I, on the other hand tried clumsily to make my way up to the tree I had been leaning against, but the large band of Slytherin seventh years had spotted and approached me before I'd made any headway.

"Well, well," Mulciber said stupidly. I shivered a little, thinking of how he'd cursed Mary MacDonald a couple of years prior. "A little lost Hufflepuff, all on her own."

They hadn't seen Ashley, so at least that was something. As they rounded on me, out of the corner of my eye I saw Ashley flying away toward the castle and I hoped that if she was getting help that she be quick about it. Without her in a tree, I had no advantage.

"What makes you think I'm alone?" I bluffed boldly. They could see right through me, I knew, but if I could keep them distracted then they might not have time to do too much damage by the time Ashley reappeared with the help I was desperately hoping she was getting.

"Quit trying to look brave, Marren," Severus Snape spat. "Your half-breed boyfriend might be a Gryffindor, but senselessly reckless doesn't suit you."

So he knew Remus was a werewolf. Or maybe he was referring to Remus being a half-blood in the most derogatory way he could think of. Either way, I had the urge to punch him in the face for insulting Remus, but I wasn't stupid enough to think it would be at all a decent idea in the company I was surrounded by.

"So what's your plan then?" I asked, counting them quickly. "Seven to one can't really be your idea of a challenge."

"Of course not," one of the ugly girls sneered. "It's target practice."

Target practice. My favorite.

I was fast running out of ideas for distracting them, so when I was disarmed by Snape and Stunned by Mulciber, it probably would have felt like a relief of tension if I hadn't been rendered unconscious.

When I was revived, I found Sirius Black hovering over me, healing some wounds on my arm, Cherry pacing frantically nearby, and Ashley calmly levitating the unconscious bodies of the Slytherin attackers into a neat pile.

"What happened?" I groaned, sitting up and noticing that I was shaking.

"Cruciatus Curse," Cherry spat. "Bloody cowards, outnumbering someone seven to one and Stunning them before torturing them. It's disgusting."

"Well, I left something in the library," Ashley said abruptly. "See you guys later!"

She dashed off before anyone had a chance to react and I began to laugh hysterically when it occurred to me what she'd done.

"D'you think," Cherry said, watching me with fear and concern, "that she had her brains addled or something?"

"Nah," Sirius said, frowning at me. "They weren't going to pull that off by the time we got here. How do you feel, Ali?"

"Relieved," I said, grinning. "I've finally got you two here, alone, where you can talk things out. Remind me to thank Ashley later."

Cherry groaned, but she smiled a little and Sirius actually chuckled.

"Wow," Sirius, shaking his head. "If I didn't know you weren't crazy, I would think you planned the whole affair."

"The fact of the matter is," sighed, "you two have been fighting an uphill battle all the way, and it's only been made worse because of your ridiculous stubbornness. But you shouldn't give up, not now that everything's on the table and everyone's finally got the full story. If you're honest with each other you still have a chance because there's not a doubt in my mind that you love each other. I know that's not all you need, but if you're honest with each other it's a powerful starting place."

"What do you expect us to do, Ali?" Cherry snarled. "Just fall into each other's arms like none of it happened and pretend it's all okay?"

"Of course not," I said earnestly. "I expect you to talk to each other. I expect you to lay it all out for each other, to fix what you can together and not commit to keep on that way moving forward. I obviously can't guarantee happiness, but it's better than no shot at all, right?"

They didn't say anything, just looked from me to each other. I knew they both wanted to try, and the only thing I could see getting their way at that point was their pride, which the both had more than their fair share of, but...

There was something else and I couldn't put my finger on what it was until Cherry raised her eyebrow at me.

"Oh!"

It clicked. They wanted me to leave before they started working on their issues.

"Right," I said firmly, standing steadily as I could. "I'll just... go to the hospital wing or something and leave you two to it."

As I stumbled back up to the castle I silently hoped it would work out all right.