Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews, favs and follows, guys! I'm really feeling the love from the Sirius/Fem!Harry shipper community with all the follows! We are a small community but boy do we love to read us some Sirius/Fem!Harry! This Fic is almost done. Just a couple more chapters. But don't worry I am planning sequels.

Chapter Four

The was a knowing sparkle in Ron's eye that Holly could have sworn was very reminiscent of Dumbledore's own knowing 'eye sparkle'. As soon as her pumpkin juice had spewed from her lips over the table, a passing waitress cleaned it quickly with a swish of her wand.

"Thanks," Ron smiled at the waitress, who blushed and moved along to other customers.

Holly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand with wide eyes. The youngest Weasley male was the last person she would have thought to know her secret relationship. Ex-relationship. Holly cringed.

"Who told you?" Holly asked in a rough whisper. "If George or Ginny told you I'm gunna -"

"No one told me!" Ron assured. "I found out on my own. Lets just say that someone should tell Remus and Sirius to check the room they decide to have a heated conversation in before they decide to start said heated conversation."

Holly gaped. "Wha-?"

Ron nodded. "I was in the toilet. If they would have come in a few seconds later they would have seen me get my naked arse out of bed to take a wee.-"

She them grimaced. "Too much information, Ronald."

"-Then to my surprise," Ron continued on. "As soon as I closed the door to the restroom, my bedroom door opened and those two muppets decided to barge in. I was about to walk out of the restroom and ask what the bloody hell was the big idea..but then I realised that I still had my man meat on display for the wizarding world to see-"

"Oh Merlin," Holly's slapped a hand over her mouth. She was feeling a little green at the unneccessary visual that Ron was giving to her.

"-So I decided to wait them out. And to my surprise, they began to row about you."

"Oh merlin," Holly repeated.

"Yep," Ron replied with a wry smile. "It was an interesting row, let me just say..Did he break up with you?"

Holly nodded, a frown marring her face. "Y-yeah. I uh..I think I'm still in shock."

"I'm sorry. I have to tell you though, if Remus were a sales man..I would have an igloo."

Holly gaped again. "An igloo? Like -like an Eskimo?"

"Yes." Ron deadpanned, "I'm not an Eskimo. That's how good he was at convincing Sirius to break up with you. And he fell for it like a niffler for dropped galleon."

She sighed. "I really don't want to talk about it. It-it just makes me a wee bit sick to my stomach thinking about it."

"I understand," Ron acquiesced. "I don't know what the bloody hell I would do with myself if Lav ever broke up with me."

"You must really love her," Holly said quietly. "I know that any other man would have just dropped the relationship altogether. Especially after what happened and her face. No offense meant, mate."

Holly watched as Ron began scratching at a water mark in the dark wood of the booth table. His face was blank and his bottom lip was between his teeth. For the first time that afternoon, she really looked at him. His dark red hair was tousled and he wore a maroon shirt under his black robes. For a redhead he was already pale, but he had bags under his eyes that lead her to believe that he was not getting as much sleep as he should.

"I do love her," Ron finally said. "But I thought about it. Don't get me wrong..I don't want you to think I'm some kind of arsehole who would drop a girl just cause some sadistic bastard a-attacked her and ..."

He bit down on his own fist. Holly could see his ears and cheeks reddening, not because he was embarrassed, but because he was holding back his anger. And his grief, Holly was coming to realise.

How could they, his family and she, not realise that the horrible tragedy that had befallen his girlfriend would not affect him? They should have noticed that something was wrong. But they weren't able to. How could they? Ron had acted his same old self, when all along he had bottled up his feelings.

"She was absolutely shattered," Ron breathed around his fist. "She wasn't the same again. I mean, obviously! Just take a look at her face. I aint no bloody saint, Holly. I thought about it. About leaving her in St Mungo's and just going home..But I couldn't. The way her face lit up every time I walked into her hospital room. The way she held my hand."

"You don't have to justify your thoughts to me, Ron," Holly assured, reaching over and squeezing the hand that was not in his mouth. "You love her. I'm not judging you, for Merlin's sake. I'm the last person who should."

"Sorry," Ron apologised. He looked sheepish. "I just..just needed to get it out. Theres no one who I can really talk to. I don't want to put any stress on George. Mum and Dad would just be..embarrasing. Ginny is a- uh.."

"Bitch," Holly offered, not sounding apologetic.

"Yeah," he nodded. "That and every time I tell her to lay off my girl she threatens me with a bat-bogey. There is something wrong with that girl."

Holly gave his hand a squeeze again. "Well, if you ever need anyone to talk to again, you can seek me out, Ron. What are family for, right?"

"What about me?"

They both froze in the booth as Lavender's soft voice washed over them. They turned to her simultaneously. Lavender's eyes were shiny and there were already tear tracks on her cheeks.

"Why can't you talk to me?"

Holly stood suddenly, fishing into her robes' pocket for a couple of galleons. She dropped a couple on the table before she made her way out of the door. There was no way that she was going to allow herself to be placed in the middle of that relationship drama. She had her own drama to deal with.

"This is my cue to leave," Holly muttered with wide eyes.

She quickly hurried down the cobble path toward the other shops. The crowd of Hogsmeade was sparse. There was less than a dozen witches and wizards walking about. No doubt they were residents. She knew that once the Hogsmeade visits were allowed the cobbled street would be teeming with students.

Above the shingled roofs of the few shops, the Towers of Hogwarts could be seen. Holly could already see Gryffindor Tower.

Holly smiled up at the tower. Her thoughts were filled with memories of the long trek up to the tower. The changing staircases, the trick step she always remembered to avoid..She was so deep into her thoughts that she had not seen the shaggy haired man who had stopped in her path until it was too late.

She gasped as she began to fall backwards. At the same time as she reached forward to grasp the tall man's shoulders, the man grasped her by the waist and steadied her.

"I am so sor-" Holly froze as she looked up into the grey eyes of Sirius Black.

Pushing away from him quickly, her gaze lowered to the cobbled street. She could feel the blood rushing her to her cheeks, her heart was beginning to beat faster and butterflies awakened as if by a hurricane. Normally, one would believe that it would have been in anticipation in seeing their lover or crush, and normally for Holly it would have been true, but now she was relating these feelings for negative reasons.

"What are you doing here?" Holly asked through clenched teeth, trying to keep her face as emotionless as possible.

Sirius stepped forward toward her, but Holly stepped back away from him. She noticed that his hands fisted immediately at her reaction.

"You weren't home," Sirius said softly. "I waited for you to come down for lunch but you never showed and when I asked about they said that you had gone. You and Hermione had just-"

"How could you think I was going to stay?!" Holly asked, finally looking up to meet his eyes. She was more than a little shocked, and angry to discover the depth of sadness in his watery grey eyes. How dare he be saddened! Especially since he was the one to break up with her!

"You just tore my heart in two, Sirius!" she said, her voice becoming shrill. "It was only just this morning! You broke up with me and now what?! You're expecting everything to just magically go back to the way things were before we started our relationship?!"

Sirius was silent, his watery grey eyes glued to her face. Holly knew that no matter how hard she was trying, it was becoming impossible to keep her face from breaking. Her eyes were burning as they filled with tears.

"That's not going to happen.." Holly choked out through her tears. "There's no way we can ever go back to just being god-daughter and godfather..There's no spell to change this."

Sirius bit his lip as his eyes also filled with tears.

"I'm so sorry!" he whispered fiercely, his voice breaking in despair. "I'm so sorry! Please forgive me!"

She turned away from him, unable to look him in the eye anymore. Just the sight of his handsome face, tempting her..It was too much. Holly had stared passionately into those gorgeous eyes, the eyes she had seen communicate what she had thought was unbreakable love. She had tasted those lips and Sirius had in turn worshiped her body with those lips. Just the thought of never having that again with this man was inconceivable. The thought of never again having this man in her life as her lover, her life partner, as her future spouse..

"I can't," she answered, just as fiercely. "I can't!"

Holly prayed to the gods that the world crack open and swallow her whole. A life without Sirius..Was that a life worth living? She didn't know. She didn't even want to imagine it.

"You have to understand, please," Sirius said to her, beseechingly.

"Stop, please!" she begged of him.

"This is for your own good.."

"Stop!"

"This was wrong to begin with.."

"Please!"

"I promised your mother and father I would take care of you.."

"Stop. Talking!"

"But I don't think this is what they meant.."

"Please!" Holly begged. "Just stop! Leave me alone!"

"LEAVE HER ALONE!"

There was a red blur and then suddenly Sirius was no longer standing in front of her. Ron had appeared out of no where. Upon seeing a crying Holly, he had seen red. Like a bull his eyes pin-pointed to the man standing just a couple of feet in front of her. Ron had apparently tackled Sirius down to the cobbled street.

"Ron!" multiple voices yelled out.

Draco, Hermione and Lavender had also come out of no where. Draco dragged the red-haired young man off of Sirius. Ron struggled in his grasp, his face and ears as almost matching the same maroon color his Mrs. Weasley loved to use for his Christmas sweaters.

Hermione was immediately at Holly's side, pulling her into her arms. She allowed Holly to burrow into her embrace and sob away. Lavender raced to Ron and Draco. The girl placed her hands on her boyfriend's chest and looked pleadingly into his eyes. As soon as eye contact was made, Ron ceased his struggling.

"Gerroffme, Malfoy," Ron grumbled as he shrugged the Slytherin off of him to wrap his arms around his girlfriend. "I'm sorry, Lav."

"What the hell is going on here?!" Hermione hissed in question.

"You wanna know what's going on here?!" Ron shouted, drawing attention from the few passersby.

"This prick -" he pointed to Sirius who was still on his back. The older man was now glaring at the youngest Weasley male with a hand trying to staunch the flow of blood from his now broken nose. "Was making her cry!"

Hermione looked toward Lavender, who nodded.

"She was crying," Lavender verified with a sad nod. "We came out of the Broomsticks and Holly was crying, asking him to leave her alone and well..Ron happened."

"This is none of anyone's business but our own!" Sirius said angrily as he pushed himself up off of the ground.

"When a woman asks a man to leave her alone, Cousin," Draco spoke up with a frown. "Especially a crying woman..You leave her the fuck alone."

"Shut up, you little death eater!" Sirius spat out. "No one asked you!"

Draco reeled back in shock, looking as if he had been slapped.

"How dare you!" Hermione hissed. "You loathsome-"

"STOP IT!"

They were all silenced as Holly stumbled from Hermione's arms toward Sirius. With all her might, she shoved him away. Sirius stumbled back a couple of feet and caught himself before he once more ended on his back. They all stared at Holly, stunned at her physical actions.

"Leave!" Holly begged, new tears beginning to run down her reddened cheeks. "Just please leave me alone."

"I'm so sorry," Sirius apologized. "I never thought I would hurt you this way. I never thought it would hurt this much."

He took one last look at her and then disapparated(?) away with a loud bang. Holly fell apart again. She began to sob in earnest as she was held close by Hermione once more. The pain of what Sirius had done was so immense, it was so hard to breath. The butterflies in her stomach were now swirling so violently that she flew out of Hermione's arms and ran toward the nearest alley which was on the side of the Three broomsticks. She began to throw up the entire corned beef sandwich she had just eaten.

Hermione was by her side the whole way, grabbing her braided hair and holding it back.

"There, there," Hermione whispered softly. "Let it out. Just let it all out, Luv."

The only thing that Holly was able to whisper back was the only thing that she was able to think of in that moment.

"He ruined me," she whispered. "He ruined me."

A/N: There you have it. It's shorter than the other chapters, but drama packed. Once again if there are any incorrect spellings, please tell me. I'm still operating without a beta at this moment. Ta!