Disclaimer: I do NOT own the Harry Potter series and any of the characters. All credit goes to my hero, the wonderful J.K. Rowling! :D

Spov

The next couple days were extremely difficult. I'd managed to behave myself, but at sometimes just barely and I could tell Hallie was getting annoyed. She didn't say anything, but she didn't have to. I could only imagine what she was going through. It couldn't be easy when it seemed like every girl in the school had made it her mission to get me to cheat on my girlfriend. She'd given up trying to be around me enough that girls would stay away, they paid her no attention. Instead she'd developed a habit of just leaving when girls were getting a little too intense. I wasn't sure if it was because she trusted me enough to behave myself, or if she didn't trust me at all and just didn't want to be around if I messed up.

James and I had decided to throw a back to school party in the common room, but now that I thought about it, that might not have been the best idea. Fire whiskey and the crowd of girls that surrounded me were not exactly ideal conditions for me to be faithful to one person. But I was trying.

"Sirius that story was so funny." Said one of the girls batting her eyelashes rather obviously at me and putting her hand on my arm.

"Yeah." Another girl said doing the same. "It reminds me of the time you and I-"

"Err… let's not tell that story right now." I said laughing but it died immediately when I saw Hallie's expression across the room. She'd gone to get water and within two seconds I'd been surrounded.

"I've got to go." I said flatly and walked over to Hallie.

"Don't let me stop you having a good time." She said rolling her eyes and sitting at a desk near the window that over looked the lake. I'd realized that she often sat here when she wanted to think.

"Hal, nothing was going on."

"Well that's a relief." She said sarcastically. "Now when I see girls throwing themselves at my boyfriend I can feel so much better."

"Are you angry?" I asked not expecting a straight forwards answer. Girls often lied when asked that question.

"Yes, but not at you."

"Hallie nothing is going to happen with those girls." I assured her.

"You don't know that."

"Yes I do."

"How?"

"Because I'm with you." I said and she looked at me, her eyes unreadable, clearly uncertain what to believe. There was a very long pause as she continued to look at me, sorting her thoughts and I felt unaccountably nervous. I'd never been in a fight in a relationship, they'd always ended much too quickly for that to happen, but I had a feeling I was dangerously close to experiencing it.

"Alright." She said eventually sounding slightly less tense and I smiled, feeling relieved.

"C'mon let's find James and Lily."

She stood and I took her hand, but just as we began walking towards the fire, where James and Lily were sitting with Remus and Alice, a random girl wedged herself between us, breaking our hands apart.

"Sirius, me and a couple of girls are trying to start a game of spin the bottle, are you interested?" she asked sexily.

"You do see I'm with my girlfriend right now right?" I asked her annoyed.

"She can come too." She said with no shame, as if Hallie's presence was of no real importance and this it seemed, was the final straw.

Hallie made an irritated noise and started to walk away.

"Get away from me." I said to the girl and went after Hallie. "Hallie, don't leave."

"I don't feel much like partying Sirius." She said darkly.

"Then we can go somewhere else."

"I just want to be left alone." She said without looking at me.

"Hal, come on..." I started but she ignored me walked towards the portrait hole.

I could tell she was going to run away again, and could have easily followed her, but I didn't. There was no use making her mad. I had a feeling, unlike most girls, that when Hallie said she wanted to be left alone, she meant it.

I watched her go in frustration then fell into the nearest chair running my fingers through my hair. I'd been after Hallie for so long, that I'd imagined what it would be like being with her many times, but never had I pictured it being this difficult. Never before had any girl caused me this amount of stress.

Was it really worth all this?

I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the back of the chair only to see Hallie. Her smile when she'd opened her Christmas gift, the expression she'd had after she'd saved my life from the werewolf attack, and that adorable look of irritated incredulity whenever I made a cocky comment or arrogant remark, as if she was amazed anyone could put up with me, let alone herself. I grinned slightly.

Yes. It was.

I opened my eyes suddenly when I felt someone sit in my lap and I was angered to see Valerie.

"Girl trouble?" she asked innocently while leaning far to close to me. "Anything I can do to help clear your mind?"

"Yes actually." I said and she smiled. "Go away."

Her smile vanished.

"I just wanted to talk." She complained.

"I know what you want." I said pushing her off and standing up. "It's the same thing as all the other girls want. And that's not to talk. The only girl who ever really wants to talk is-"

"Hallie?" she asked in irritation.

"Yes. My girlfriend." I said pointedly. "And it's people like you why she left."

Suddenly, all the attention I'd been getting from those girls was no longer flattering, it was annoying. I didn't want to be with any of those girls, the only girl I wanted to see was Hallie, and they were the ones who had caused her to go away.

"From now on." I said looking at Valerie who looked slightly alarmed at my expression. "Leave me alone. Tell that to your friends too. I'm not interested."

I left her, standing there looking stunned.

I knew what I had to do, and immediately began walking towards the dormitory. I had no idea where Hallie was, but that wasn't a big deal, a few seconds on the map was more than what I needed to find her.

I climbed the steps to the boys dormitory and entered our room, praying that no girls had gotten the idea to follow me.

Hpov

"She can't honestly think he's changed." Someone from the group of girls sitting behind me whispered, not even bothering to keep her voice down as I worked in the library. It was obvious who they were talking about and I just didn't have the energy to fight with a bunch of idiotic underclassmen about my relationship with Sirius.

"Who does she think she is?"

"I don't see why he'd even like her."

"She's not even pretty."

"Honestly, even I wouldn't be that dumb."

I knew people would talk about Sirius and I starting to date, but if I thought Alice's reaction was bad, it was nothing compared to Sirius's fan girls.

The school seemed to be pretty much divided on the subject into two halves, which was amazing to me because I didn't see why anyone would care. The first group, Slughorn prominent among them, were just like Alice, relieved that the waiting was over and had sworn up and down that they knew it was going to happen along. The second group, which consisted of girls in Sirius's fan club, was not quite as supportive. In fact, they hated it, or rather they hated me.

Each of them had seemed to make it their new life goal to test his resolve and they came up to him flirting and adoring him like never before and as much as Sirius tried to hide it, I knew he was struggling to resist the temptation. I wasn't sure if I could even blame him. So far he'd been ok, but any boy might have cracked under that kind of pressure, and he was by nature a ladies man.

I couldn't stand to watch it anymore. I was sick of being pushed to the side by all these other people and it was infuriating to watch him struggle.

I'd finished my homework last night but I couldn't be around him right now. I was just simply stalling for time so I didn't run into Sirius in the common room before I went up to bed. I reached in my bag looking for something to do and I pulled out a book. I felt a shock go through me when I realized I was holding the book he'd had given me for Christmas.

"How long did you think you could hide from me Hallie?"

I jumped for a moment half sure I'd imagined his voice, but when I looked up, Sirius was there.

"I'm not hiding from you." I lied and he raised an eyebrow. "I've just got a lot of work."

"You know I can tell when you're lying right?" he asked sitting in the chair next to mine and folding his arms over his chest while he looked at me.

"You'd be the first."

"I can see it in your eyes." he said as if I hadn't spoken.

"How did you find me?" I asked deflecting his question with one of my own. I knew none of my friends had told him, I'd made the decision to come here on my own.

"I have my ways." He said cryptically and my mood didn't improve.

"So you get to hide things but I don't?"

"You're the one avoiding me." He pointed out. "Not the other way around. I'm your boyfriend, you can't just keep running away." He added. "As long as you're in the castle, I'll be able to find you."

"How?" I challenged.

He didn't answer.

"What a compelling argument." I said sarcastically.

"Hallie for the past week I've been trying to get you to talk to me, but you've shut me out completely."

"Can't you leave this alone?" I asked quietly.

"No."

"Sirius I don't want to talk about this."

"And I don't want to spend all of next week chasing you around trying to force you to talk to me." He said flatly while adopting an expression that made me feel like I was two again, fighting with my father about my refusal to put my socks on.

"Why won't you just let it go?" I asked him annoyed. Only he could be this irritating.

"Because I care about you." He said and for some reason, those words seem to unlock everything I'd been trying to hold back.

"That's not what everyone else thinks." I muttered bleakly.

His eyes landing on the girls behind me. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. "Remus said you might react like this."

"You talked to Remus about me?" I asked furiously.

"I wanted to talk to you." He said darkly. "But you've done a damn good job of avoiding me. Every time something difficult happens you just run away."

"Of course I've been avoiding you Sirius." I said, the words tumbling out before I could stop them. "Would you want to be around me if boys came up to me all the time and tried to convince me to sleep with them as if you weren't even there? And mean while, everyone in the school is calling you an idiot, reaffirming your fears that you're making a mistake in trusting me. I don't want to see girls throwing themselves all over you, and I'm sick of people looking at me like I'm an idiot whenever I'm with you. It's bad enough I have to hear it wherever I go."

"But it's not anything I've done?" he asked and I glared at him realizing that once again he'd managed to convince me to say everything that I'd been trying to hold in.

"No." I admitted.

"Then come with me." He said suddenly taking my hand and pulling me out of my chair as he stood.

"Why?" I asked frowning and putting my bag over my shoulder.

"It's a surprise."

"You know Sirius I am really not in the mood." I said with a sigh. I wasn't up for any of his games right now. I didn't want to be around him when he was being charismatic or irresistible. Just the thought of trying to keep a clear head when he was like that was exhausting. I just wanted to be miserable for a while and left alone.

"I don't care." He said. "You owe me a date Hallie, you can't say no."

"Sirius, It's nearly nine thirty. Where the hell are we going to go for a date at this time of night?"

"You'll find out." He said pulling me towards the exit.

"It's snowing, besides, unless you're planning on taking me to an empty class room we have no where to go."

"You know you're not thinking very creatively." He said in disapproval. "Turn on your Katie brain for a moment will you?"

I wanted to yell at him for calling me that, but I was too intrigued to be angry. If I was Sirius and I wanted to be alone with someone, where would I go?

"You want to leave the castle?"

"There we go."

"And how do you expect to get out?" I asked him skeptically. "The castle's locked for the night."

"You know I'm a little insulted Hal." He said and I felt an eyebrow rise. "Do you really think after nearly seven years of mischief making my friends and I haven't found one way to get out of the castle after dark?"

"No." I said sourly. "But I would be very surprised if you ever actually showed me anything you and your friends get up to."

"Well I guess it's your lucky day then." He said grinning.

"What do you mean?"

"Because last time my mates and I were, well as you put it, 'getting up to something', we found something cool. Something I've wanted to show you, but I thought I might be a little dangerous."

I looked back at the girls who were all glaring at me, clearly upset that I'd had Sirius's fullest attention.

"Will it be fun?"

"Very fun." He said grinning.

"Let's do it." I said determinedly.

"That's my girl." He said laughing and putting his arm around my shoulders. "But now that I think about it, we might want to put on some warmer clothes."

"Why?"

"Because as you said, it's snowing. And you and I are in for a bit of a hike."