Chapter 52

Alice, Sirius, Mary and Marlene

Alice Prewett

"Okay, but what I don't understand is why Marlene would like to sleep with Severus, she's never been able to stand him. Not even when you were friends," I frown at Lily, who is sitting on my bed with her hands covering her face.

"I don't know," she mumbles, rocking slightly back and forth.

"What exactly did she even say to you?"

"She didn't say anything," Lily replies, finally looking at me and lowering her hands. "Sirius came into the room, livid and yelled it at us. Yelled that she was going to sleep with Severus."

"Don't you think its just something she's said to him to make him jealous? Marlene has no reason to want to sleep with Severus."

"I don't know," Lily sighs. "I'm sorry that I'm such a mess, it's just-like-I-He used to be my best friend, you know? And then he called me that awful… that awful thing and I was so angry and now we have nothing and now she wants to-and I mean, like I don't anymore, but I always used to have some sort of feelings for him so-" she bites her lip. "I just, I really don't want Marlene to sleep with him."

"I can't imagine she's going to. I just can't see that happening." I think about it before continuing. "Though, it's Marlene. She's done some weird stuff… and if it's not annoy Sirius…"

"Then she's pretty much cable of everything," Lily nods her head, tone bitter.

I'm still not feeling it though. Why on earth would Marlene McKinnon sleep with Severus Snape? But I'm still very much angry at her and Mary. Mainly I'm angry at them for upsetting Lily and for behaving like this. Especially seeing as they've made it very clear that they're angry at us as well. Seriously, Lily didn't even do anything wrong, how can they be the angry ones?

"But why were you crying anyway?" I ask her, realising I never brought up that subject the night before. Lily had come crying back into the dormitory, completely historical and sobbing about Marlene and Snape. She'd then told me the story; how Marlene had found her crying in a classroom and then she'd found out about Marlene's supposed sex affair.

"It doesn't matter," Lily replies after a moment of hesitation.

I raise my eyebrows, knowing that it probably really does matter. Then again, I don't feel like it's my business. We've all been keeping secrets from each other lately, who am I to expect Lily to tell me whats wrong with her when I haven't told her anything myself?

She seems to notice that I'm trying to decide whether or not to ask her more questions and she gets up from the bed, wiping her hands over her eyes and straightening her skirt. "I think I'm just going to take a long shower," she tells me. "I've got too much on my mind and I just want to relax."

"Okay," I tell her. "What are we going to do about Mary and Marlene, though?"

Lily sighs. "I can't be mad forever, but I really need Marlene to explain what is going on but I don't want to ask her, you know?"

"You want her to come to you," I nod my head, understanding perfectly what she means. But then again, we are talking about Marlene McKinnon and she's probably not going to come crawling for forgiveness.

I sigh as I watch Lily enter the bathroom. I have a feeling this is going to be a long, long day.

Sirius Black

Staring down at my knuckles I'm not sure whether the blood is my own or not, but I don't really care. I look up, eyes focusing on the door I'm exiting. I hear it slam against the wall as I walk through, but I don't care about that either. I thread the stairs, wiping the blood off on my robes as I do so, knowing that I need to act normal and get to my dorm as soon as I can. Even though, with that many witnesses, Professor McGonagall is bound to come through my dorm door soon. Once again, I don't find myself caring at all.

When I enter my room, I find Remus already there on his bed reading a book. He doesn't look up when I enter but says hello anyway.

I don't reply which causes his attention and his eyes lift from the open pages and his eyebrows furrow immediately. "What happened to you?"

At his words, I turn to look at the mirror. Fuck. That bastard got a hit in too. My jaw is red and already swelling. "Nothing," this time I do reply, but he doesn't seem satisfied.

"You look like you've just been in a fight."

"You're really smart, Moony. Did I ever tell you that?"

"Sirius, don't tell me you did something stupid."

"Fine, I won't tell you."

"Where is James-"

Just as summoned, the door opens and James falls in, red faced and heavy breathing. "McGonagall is on her way," he tells me, voice breathless. He doesn't even question and I really do love him for it. For warning me that the professor is coming and not scolding me even once nor asking though he has no idea why she's coming for me this time.

However, Remus isn't James and he does care too much about the shit I pull. "Why is she coming here? What did you do, Sirius?" he's demanding answers now, his book having hit the floor as he stood up too quickly when James stumbled in.

"Probably to give me detention, deduct points. Same old, same old." I shrug, moving to my bed and throwing myself on it.

"Why are you so calm?" Remus says, looking at me and then at James. "James, what did he do?"

"I honestly have no idea," replies James, sitting down on my bed and giving me a look. "But I can give it a good guess looking at your knuckles. Whose face did they find?"

"Guess three times."

"Snivellus Snape?"

"Cha-ching!" I chime up, chipper. "I take it back, Moons. James is way smarter than you."

"You didn't," Remus breathes out, sitting down on his bed and giving me a look of way too much disapproval.

"I do what I want," I reply, with a grimace and before Remus can even try to disagree the ever so lovely Minerva McGongall makes her appearance with the not-so-happy sound of my name leaving her lips and a look matching Remus's on her face.

But, of course, I don't care about that either.

Mary Macdonald

The news of Sirius's and Snape's fistfight travels fast around school. Which isn't weird as all seeing as it happened in broad daylight outside by the lake. Why does everything go down at that bloody lake?

Marlene is utterly hysterical upon hearing about it. But Sirius hitting someone that wants to shag Marlene isn't something that comes as a surprise to me. Has she even met Sirius Black? Those anger issues aren't well covered up, at all. At least, I did sort of a good job at hiding my problems, no one knew about my eating disorder for a while. But everyone knows Black's got some issues and my Lenie is one of them, definitely.

"Why did he do that? Why does he always do something stupid?" Marlene is wondering, pacing back and forth our room and her nails digging into her own skin. A habit she has when she's nervous, which results in her nails breaking and the varnish breaking and scratching off. Which is something I hate. Other than that, she has great fingers.

"He's Sirius Black," I reason with her. "Like, when is he ever not doing something stupid?" I give her a look, knowing that we're both thinking that 'doing Marlene McKinnon' is also stupid.

She gives me a forced grimace, her face paler than normally. "Snape probably has no idea what's going on," she sighs, falling on her bed.

"Okay. Two questions. One, since when do we care what Snape knows? Two, how can you know that this ploy of Avery's isn't Snape's idea? Maybe, he's in love with you."

"Disgusting," Marlene tells me. "And I don't know that. Maybe he knows. But he probably doesn't understand why Sirius would punch him. Everyone knows me and Sirius are done."

"That's not even remotely true. No one knows that, because you're never actually done, Lene. Seriously. You're so good at lying to yourself, its ridiculous."

"Stop it," Marlene bites out at me. "We're going to start fighting again if we talk about me and Sirius."

I know she's right so I just give her a shrug. "Okay, so do you wan't to talk about him hitting Snape?"

She throws her hands in the air. "It's just so ridiculous!"

"He's in fucking love with you, Marlene. Of course he wants to hit the guy you're planning on shagging."

"He's not in love with me," Marlene sighs, not bothering to fight me on the subject we're approaching again. "He's in love with the idea of me being in love with him. Because then he's truly won."

She's probably right about that. But I also think he has to love her. None of this makes sense if he doesn't love her. Not all these years of pain and suffering and punching and shagging and hating. It doesn't make sense he'd go through all of this if he doesn't love her. Right? But I don't say any of this to Marlene. What am I going to do if he doesn't love her and I've told her that he does?

"Fine, but at least you've got to admit that he's got some crazy possessive issues. Maybe he thinks you should be celibate now that you've broken up. I mean, once you go Black you never go back right?" I crack a smile but Marlene just throws a pillow at me.

Marlene McKinnon

Okay, so Sirius Black had a fist fight with Severus Snape. Most likely over me. Well, over the fact that I've apparently made a promise to sleep with the latter one. Obviously, I've already slept with the first one. But what the hell was I even thinking ever making a deal with Avery? And for shit information anyway. I could've told myself that Emmeline Vance was a conniving bitch. I really don't know how I'm going to get myself out of this one. What even happens if I don't? What's Avery going to do if I just don't go through with it? He's only seventeen, there's not so much damage he can do, right? Right?

I get chills from thinking about it, however. What if there is so much damage he can do? What do I even know about him? I mean he did try to… His friends and he once tried to… assault me a little bit (A lot would Mary say). But we're still just teenagers, we're not evil right? Not even Mulciber. Right?

As I walk down to the Common Room, I think about the fact that what I'm about to do is a really bad idea. But maybe I really am self-destructive like Mare says I am, but I just feels this need to talk to him, you know? Because, like, he attacked someone because of me. Is that stupid?

Just like James said he would be, Sirius is getting back from detention at ten and as I get to the last step of the stairs, he's climbing through the portrait. It's Sunday afternoon so the Common Room is almost empty. He looks up and sees me immediately, his eyes darken and mouth forms a thin line.

He tries to walk past me but I grab his arm.

"Can we talk?"

Sirius Black

Seeing her shouldn't make me feel this way. But when I look at her, I feel stuff. First, I forget. I forget how much I really despite her and everything she does. For a few moments, I really do forget everything and instead I feel a little rush of affection and a small need to breath in her smell for hours. Then, I remember. And when I remember I also feel stuff, painful stuff. My stomach genuinely turns and I can feel my insides burning. I no longer want to look at her because looking at her fucking makes me angry and I really don't want to breathe in that sweet smell of her perfume, anymore.

Her voice however, still works as if it were magic and her soft touch makes me burn harder.

Can we talk?

I don't want to talk because I know our conversations will late leave me satisfied and her voice plays tricks on my soul. But, she's magic and I can't resist the need to know what she has to say, so I give her a nod and follow her to an empty corner.

She leans back against the wall, her eyes studying my face and for a moment, they stop on my swollen jaw and her eyebrows furrow and bites her lip. "Why didn't you see Madam Pomfrey?" she questions.

"I don't need to," I reply, shortly. "Is that what you wanted to talk about?"

"No," she frowns. "I was just asking-"

"Just get to the subject, Marlene, I don't have time for your games right now."

She seems taken aback by my tone and it doesn't sit well with me to see the look on her face, but she recovers quickly.

"Sorry," her tone is also bitter now. "I forgot how impatient you were. Really, I just wanted to check up on you…" she frowns. "I heard about your fight and I just wanted to see how you were and… well, tell you it was stupid of you."

Of course. Of fucking course. She's here to tell me off. She is here to tell me off. Like she has any right to say I'm acting stupid after what I heard she was planing to do.

I snort. "Yeah, me throwing a punch around is stupid but you whoring out to Snape is good fun?" I don't mean to sound so mean, but I can't help it. My chest I heaving and my face is already red, the burning on the inside is only getting worse.

"Ouch," she tells me. "I can't believe you're going to be this way. I'm genuinely trying to have a civil conversation with you, Sirius-"

"Civil? You telling me off is civil? What I do is none of your business, have you ever thought about that? Huh? You're not my girlfriend, Marlene. You're not even my friend, really."

Before I can have time to regret my words, she's hit me. And it's kind of a good hit, with a fist and not a flat palm. I take a step back and recover. "Now you're getting in fist fights?"

"You're such a fucking dickhead," she tells me, voice breathless. "I can't believe I'm even trying to talk to you." She turns around to walk away from me and the burning inside me reaches it's high point and I explode.

"I never asked you to check up on me! Actually, I've asked you to stay the fuck away from me. But of course you can't do that. Little Marlene McKinnon has to mess up everything and worm her way into everything. That's why you're shagging Snape, isn't it? Because you need to be the centre of the attention and no one wants to give you attention anymore. And do you know why that is? Because you're used up and boring, McKinnon. No one wants you because there's nothing left of you that someone hasn't already had, used and thrown away."

My chest falls and so does her face, she looks down but not quick enough so I don't see the look on her face and I have a feeling that this look is going to be burned into my retina for ages to come. I'm breathlesss and my chest moves as if I've just run ten miles and my head is spinning as my own words ring in my ears but I don't know what to do now.

Neither does she, clearly. Slowly, she just looks back at my face. Blue eyes studying me and I wonder what she's trying to find. Her face is now stone cold, emotionless and without another word she turns around and walks slowly back towards the stairs, leaving me staring after her, my words still fresh on my tongue and in my head. But I have nothing else left to say, so I just continue to watch her leave until she's all gone and all I'm left looking as is nothing.