A/N: Hello again! If you're wondering why Amelia is pulling chapters out of her ass all of a sudden, it's because she finished school... a week ago. Anyways, here's chapter 17 :)


Rachel knocked loudly on the Headmaster's door, Lily in tow (with a noticeable scowl on her face). The door opened and revealed the kind professor. Rachel smiled at him and Lily gave him a greatly apologetic look.

"I suppose soon I'll have to get party snacks, won't I?" the Headmaster noted cheerfully as he welcomed the two girls in. Rachel frowned in confusion… until she saw who was already in the Headmaster's office.

Rachel scowled at Sirius. "I shouldn't be surprised you landed yourself in the Headmaster's office," Rachel commented.

"Actually, I didn't get in trouble this time," Sirius replied smugly.

"Wow, congratulations," Rachel said sarcastically. "One time out of a million."

"Children," Dumbledore warned in a disapproving voice. I'm not a child, Rachel thought to herself.

"Anyways, by now, I've assumed you've come to talk to me about the same thing," Dumbledore said.

Rachel scoffed once more. "I doubt that."

"Yeah, you know, I do too," Sirius mumbled.

"Oi, will you two stop being so sour!" James commanded. "What got into the two of you, anyway?" he added, grumbling.

"Well, Miss Fredricks, would you like to go first then?" Dumbledore asked invitingly.

Rachel gave James and Sirius a cautious look before answering Dumbledore, "Well, I'm sure you're aware of what's been going on around the school and even outside of the school in Muggle London and Wizarding London," Rachel began. "I'm having a tough time believing you're simply standing by the sidelines, professor. I want to know if you've developed a way to fight back."

Dumbledore's gaze was steady on Rachel as silence filled the room for a long moment. Sirius was the one to break that silence.

"Well, what do you know," he began. "We did come here for the same reason."

Before Rachel could voice her opinion in a very unladylike manner, Dumbledore had stood up and began speaking, "And what exactly brought on this assumption, Ms. Fredricks?"

Rachel bit her lip nervously. There was no way she was going to sound mushy in front of Sirius. No. Way. However, it seemed like she couldn't avoid the situation. With a sigh, she answered quietly, "Mary is one of my closest friends. It makes me so…" Rachel sighed. She couldn't believe she was saying this out loud. "It makes me scared that Mulciber just got let off so easily. Okay? I'm scared."

With a huff, Rachel crossed her arms and looked down at her lap. That was just too embarrassing for words.


Sirius couldn't believe his ears. He always knew Rachel simply wasn't a person that would talk about her feelings. She just didn't deem the matter important. Especially not negative and inferior feelings. Those were completely unspoken of and everyone around Rachel, including Rachel herself, just assumed there were no negative and inferior feelings within the girl.

But Sirius had heard her words clear as day. Rachel Fredricks was scared. And Sirius only wanted to do one thing in that moment.

Hold her. Just hold her close to him.

But he knew he couldn't because he had fucked up. He fucked up a total of four times (even if the first two were because his friends couldn't shut their mouths and stay out of it) and there was no way she was forgiving him. Sirius wasn't sure he could forgive himself.

But how he wished he could just hold her in that moment. The fact that Sirius knew she fearedsomething (and something rational, too) made him fall for her that much more.

This whole feelings thing was getting to his head.

Sirius watched as Dumbledore sat back down at his desk. "In my long life, I have rarely regretted my decisions, but there are a select few that I have regretted. One of them being trying Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Bean," Dumbledore began. After a pause, he added, "But I will not get into detail of my mistakes. What I learned from these decisions, however, were life-lasting lessons that I would not have learned otherwise. So it is without regret that I share this news with you."

Dumbledore looked over at Sirius and James and softly nodded, a gesture for them to sit. Sirius and James sat down in two empty seats and Dumbledore continued, "There is, in fact, something set up to stop Death Eaters, Voldemort's followers," he paused, as if contemplating if he should continue. "It is called the Order of the Phoenix. The Order is an organization built upon not only stopping Death Eaters, but also to teach people how to stop Death Eaters."

"Great!" Rachel exclaimed suddenly. "When can we join?"

Dumbledore chuckled softly. "I'm afraid I can't allow that, Miss Fredricks."

Rachel frowned in confusion. "Why not?" she asked firmly. "I'm of age; I take full responsibility for all of my choices, and this is my choice."

"But you are still a student," Dumbledore said. "And you are my student. I will not purposely put my students in danger."

"So if I join the moment I graduate from Hogwarts, it's better that I'm in danger then because at least I'm not a student?" Rachel questioned angrily. "What does it matter, anyway?"

"Headmaster," Sirius said, standing up. "I think whether we join or not really is our choice. We are, after all, of age."

"And I make the choice of who is admitted," Dumbledore stated. "And I will not allow my students to be put in danger like that. You may be of age, but being my students makes you my responsibility."

"Headmaster," Lily said, stepping forward. "You know we are all talented in magical studies. You know how responsible all four of us are. And yet, you refuse to let us help. You wouldn't have to give us much Order work as students, but at least let us be part of this."

Dumbledore stared at Lily, as if he was carefully weighing his words. He sighed. "On one condition: none of your other friends will hear of this until they have graduated."

Sirius ground his teeth together, but only nodded in reply. That's a lousy condition, he thought to himself bitterly.


"Ah, I'd forgotten how amazing these Hogsmeade trips were," Dorcas mused to herself.

Rachel smiled faintly, but gave no reply. She only took a cautious sip of her Firewhiskey.

Her friends didn't notice her odd behaviour. Instead, they continued on happily talking. Rachel couldn't blame them; she wished she could find something happy in her life, especially in those times. The anti-Muggle acts were only getting more and more noticeable. People were… scared..

And, well, so was Rachel. She'd never been scared off anything in her whole life (well, except for the huge Doberman her neighbours had), but now she was scared.

And she was also feeling rather guilty that she couldn't say anything about the Order. But that was another matter completely that Rachel did not want to delve into in that moment.

Dumbledore hadn't given them many tasks. Since James and Lily were Head Girl and Head Boy, they got the job of reporting suspicious behaviour and catching the crooks in the act. The most Rachel had had to do was nose around and dig up some Slytherin secrets. On the bright side, she stopped Nott and a few of his minions from attacking some muggle-borns in the library. That had been somewhat fun.

Rachel suddenly stood up from her stool in the quaint Three Broomsticks and shot her friends a smile. "I think I'm going to go for a stroll."

"Do you want me—?"

"No," Rachel interrupted Lily. "I'll be fine—wand at the ready!" she added jokingly.

Her friends laughed and Rachel left the bar in a hurry. She wandered the cold November streets of Hogsmeade and watched as her boots left detailed footprints in the day-old snow. She walked through the streets of Hogsmeade until she wasn't far from the old Shrieking Shack. She sat on a tree stump and rubbed her bare hands together, trying to warm up a bit.

"A pair of gloves would've been a smart idea, don't you think?"

Rachel quickly spun around at the sound of the voice. His voice. She was only somewhat shocked to find Sirius standing behind her. Rachel surprised herself even as she shifted over and made room for him to sit on the tree stump. Sirius noticed this and sat next to her.

"Do you know what happened a year ago?" Sirius asked.

Rachel frowned in confusion. "Well, I went to Barcelona last summer," she replied slowly. "It was an interesting trip, I suppose."

Surprised filled Rachel as she heard Sirius laugh. She turned to him and asked, "What?"

After calming his laughter, Sirius replied, "A year ago today, I threw a snowball at you and then we snogged," he paused. "It was quite the day."

"Yeah, I remember," Rachel said with a roll of her eyes. "That ended well."

Sirius smirked at her sarcasm. "Of course it did. I'm sure I was all over your dreams afterwards."

Rachel rolled her eyes but smiled nonetheless. Sirius noticed this and gave her arm a soft punch. Rachel turned towards him, her face set in a glare, as she punched his arm harder. So hard that he fell over and into the snow. Rachel laughed and looked down to see Sirius covered in snow.

"That was rather rude," he noted. Rachel bit her lip as his eyes met his. She supposed Sirius was right: he had somewhat of a lasting effect on her after that day. "Mind helping me up?"

Rachel stood with a sigh and offered her hand to Sirius. Sirius's own hand reached up and grasped hers, but before Rachel could pull Sirius up, he tugged on her arm and Rachel came toppling down into the snow and on top of Sirius. Rachel spat some snow out of her mouth as she leaned on her forearms and glared at Sirius.

"Now that was rude," Rachel said.

Sirius shrugged. "Payback."

Rachel narrowed his eyes at Sirius. "Yeah, you and your pranks."

"Well, I do rather—"

Sirius was cut off, however, by Rachel's lips meeting his.

Well this is definitely a change of situations, Sirius thought to himself happily as his hands found Rachel's waist and pulled her close.

Sirius felt Rachel's hands along the base of his neck, her fingers going into his hair. She let out a sigh of content as Sirius pulled her closer. This was what Sirius had wanted to do ever since the day in Dumbledore's office. Just hold her close to him.

Rachel pulled away suddenly and a serious look came up her flushed face. "Now listen here, you twat: you're getting another chance," Rachel said. "Don't screw it up."

Sirius smirked. "I don't plan to."

Rachel's face of seriousness quickly turned into a smile and the two were once more a mess of tangled limbs.


Fear not! This isn't the end :) However, I do hope to finish before July 5th because I will be going on summer holiday and I don't want to leave my wonderful readers without a chapter for 6-7 days :)

-Grammar/spelling?
-Those that want her to open the letter: you will hate me. Okay? Okay.
-Predictions?

Thanks for reading! :)