A/N: Hey everyone! Thanks for your reviews! Sorry to upset you all, but sometimes things have to go badly before they go well Hang in there! Lyrics from Marina and the Diamonds.

"Can't risk losing in love again babe."

~o0o~

"Ginny, please! Please I need you!" Lacey pounded on the door to Number 12 Grimmauld place. When she left the hotel room, she realized she couldn't floo without letting one of the hotel employees know, so she decided to find a place to apparate from. In her emotional state, she had done poorly and landed clumsily in a field a mile away from the little suburb that Grimmauld was situated in. She could hardly breathe as she banged on the door, not caring if she woke up everyone on the street. She needed her best friend more than anything.

"What…what is it…oh Merlin, Lace…" Ginny held her best friend with more strength than Sirius thought she had as the girl collapsed, crying, in her arms, considering Lacey was a foot taller. Sirius helped usher them both back inside. He wanted to complain that it was three in the morning and that she had scared the shit out of him with her yelling, but he had never seen Lacey act like this. He knew something was wrong.

"Are you hurt? Do you need to go to St. Mungo's?" He asked, helping relieve her weight from Ginny's arms and she clung limply to him.

"No. Sorry, I know this is crazy and I am completely ruining your night but I just made the biggest mistake of my life and of course I had to realize it about thirty seconds ago…" Lacey rambled, sniffing back tears.

"Sirius, can you make us some tea. I'm going to take her up to the guest bedroom…" Ginny said in a soothing voice no doubt passed down to her by Mrs. Weasley; Sirius nodded and went to put a kettle on, sleepily running his hand over his face and worrying about the brunette.

"Is Narcissa here?" Lacey asked sheepishly as they walked up the creaky stairs to the second floor.

"No. She and Remus are at the Manor. We're fine, its just us babe," Ginny patted her best friends' shoulder as they made their way to the guest bedroom and Lacey flopped pathetically onto the bed, curling up in the fetal position, "Now talk please, you are scaring me."

"He was going to marry me and I left…" Lacey said softly into the pillow she clutched to her chest. Her stomach dropped just thinking about it.

"I'm sorry, what?" Ginny snapped as Sirius walked into the room carrying a tea tray and set it on the bedside table. He looked so utterly domestic doing so and Lacey started laughing, cracking up so hard that she rolled over onto her back and clutched her stomach from it. She knew she was acting like a nut case, but everything was so beyond fixable that she found it suddenly hilarious.

Sirius pulled out his wand, ready to check her for some type of curse, but Ginny raised her hand to silently tell him to stop. She knew what Lacey was doing, she had known the girl her whole life-something was very, very wrong if she was trying to deflect it by laughing like this. Something she didn't want to deal with.

"Shut the hell up and tell us what happened," Ginny said firmly and Lacey's laughter ceased as she sat up on the bed and crossed her legs.

"Lucius took me to Paris. We had an amazing day and he kept saying he had a question to ask me, but I kept being my stupid self and…I found an engagement ring in his jacket pocket while he was asleep. I left him a note and I ran," Lacey looked at her hands as she spoke, not wanting to face her best friend or Sirius and there was a long moment of quiet before Ginny decided what to say.

"I'm sorry Lace, but you need to hear this. Maybe telling him about this whole situation may have hurt him, but what you just did is going to hurt him so much more. I don't understand how you can tell us you are in love with him…because what you just did doesn't show that. You are only worried about yourself getting hurt and its bloody selfish!" Ginny told her. She hated having to yell at her best friend like this, but she needed tough love.

"Whether or not he knows you found the ring, when he wakes up, he's going to feel like you aren't ready to commit to anything….that you don't care. That's how I would feel…" Sirius looked over at Ginny, trying to imagine himself in the same situation.

"I know. I've completely fucked up. I knew it while I was writing the note…but what could I have done? If he were to ask me this morning, how could I say yes to him? He'd be engaged to a liar, right from the start," Lacey sighed.

"You are seriously not getting the point. It's not about you," Ginny groaned as Sirius moved behind his girlfriend and started to massage her shoulders.

"It's late, we are all exhausted. Lacey needs to get some sleep before her match and we will figure it out tomorrow," Sirius decided, leading Ginny out of the room and closing the door. Even though Lacey's mind was racing and recounting the last hour of bad decisions, she soon fell into a deep but fitful sleep.

~o0o~

"Astoria, come on. We haven't got much time," Pansy Parkinson hissed at her auburn-haired accomplice as she worked on the wards of the main entrance to the Dorset Quidditch stadium, Puddlemere United's home base. It only took the talented witch a few moments before they were granted entry into the large, quiet stadium, which wouldn't be filled for many hours to come.

The two girls had been planning this for weeks; they had cased the stadium and found out when the very first employees arrived, which weren't until seven in the morning. So, with the five in the morning darkness on their side, the pair navigated their way to Puddlemere's locker room.

"Do you think this is really going to work?" Astoria wondered aloud, worrying her lip as Pansy once again took over the duty of breaking the wards to the locker room. She could sense there were alarms woven into the magic, but her careful practice let her narrowly avoid tripping them as they entered the dark team room.

"Lumos," Pansy held up her wand and whispered, "Of course it will. Delaney is as daft and lovesick as they come. It's almost too easy."

The girls found their way to Lacey's locker. All of the player's lockers were freshly adorned with the Puddlemere colors and their number and surnames for the first pre-season match. Astoria gently opened her robe, took out the broom she had been carrying and leaned it against the locker.

"Now, the letter, do you have it?" Astoria asked, looking at the beautiful broom the girls had acquired from Borgin and Bourke's. She knew it already had several charms on it, but Pansy had been working on another for the last week in their small apartment.

"Mhmm," Pansy grinned as she attached a folded note to the broomstick. She had painstakingly copied Lucius' handwriting from an old love letter she kept. The script was a perfect match, "Now we just have to watch this stupid match and everything will fall into place."

~o0o~

"Lucius?" Lacey yelled around her house, their love nest, the next morning. There was no response. She had owled him and received no answer but she was hesitant to go looking for him at the Manor. Ginny and Sirius had tried to console her at breakfast that morning, even though Ginny was standing firmly besides her opinion; Lacey was just thankful Remus and Narcissa hadn't joined them. Now, with only an hour until she had to be at the pitch, she knew she didn't have much choice other than to focus on the game and find him after. Her thoughts were so consumed with this that she had forgotten it was her birthday up until she arrived at Dorset stadium.

"How are ya birthday girl?" Oliver Wood slapped her playfully on the back as he caught up to her in the hallway that led to their locker room. His question pulled her back into reality for a moment.

"Fine, yeah, thanks…"

"You don't seem all that fine…" he leaned closer to her.

"Just pre-game jitters, you know how it is," she politely brushed him off as they entered the changing rooms together. She headed to the right side of the lockers, where hers was located, as the rest of the team started to trickle in, laughing and talking and going through their good luck rituals.

But it wasn't long before half of her team was crowded around her locker looking at the broomstick there, as in awe as she was.

"A Firebolt 350? Lace, that's top of the top!" her teammate Riley smiled, picking it up for a closer look. As she did, the note attached fluttered to the floor and Lacey grabbed for it.

Happy Birthday and good luck today.

-L

She kept the note clutched to her chest as she smiled like a silly school girl. He wasn't mad. She still had hope. Everything was going to be okay.

"Hey, hey, hey, what's all the fuss about in here?" Eddie Deverill's charismatic voice boomed through the locker room as he made his way to the semi-circle around Lacey, all of whom were passing around her new broom and admiring it, or in some cases, jealously eyeing it.

"Just a gift, it's nothing much…" Lacey shook her head as she took her broom back.

"Nothing much?! Well, I will have to thank whoever gave this to you for giving us a little leg up on the competition," Eddie smirked. The rest of the team had Firebolt 250's, which were nothing to laugh at, but the latest model easily outstripped them, "Good luck today my new star," he said so only she could hear it before stepping towards the center of the locker room for a pre-game speech followed by a reminder about tactical plays from Oliver. Lacey heard only half of it, as she was just so excited that she still had a chance with Lucius and vowed to stop the lying as soon as she stepped off the pitch later that day.

~o0o~

"Do you see him?" Ginny leaned over and asked Sirius quietly after scanning the stadium with her binoculars. It wasn't quite full, as it was still pre-season, but a match of Puddlemere and the Falmouth Falcons was not something to be missed. They were sitting in a private box afforded to invitees of the players along with Hermione, Harry, Ron, Luna, the Twins (with Fred in an extra surly mood), and Remus. Narcissa had stayed home, even though she had wanted to glamour herself and come anyway, but it had been deemed too risky.

"No, not yet," Sirius said. He was scanning the other boxes as best as he could for Lucius Malfoy, but had yet to catch a glimpse of his telltale platinum hair. Ginny had promised Lacey that if she saw him, she would relay a message to him.

"Did she get a new broom?"

"You've got to be bloody joking, that's a Firebolt 350!" Both Ron and Harry were going on at once as soon as the teams filed onto the pitch. Lacey was right behind Oliver Wood and her new broom was gleaming in the early afternoon sunlight.

"You buy it for her, Remus?" Fred asked, pointedly and the werewolf sighed and shook his head, jolted back into the realization that he had to pretend that he was interested in the match, and more specifically, in Lacey, when all he could think about was what was to come after when they talked with Lucius.

"There! I see him!" Ginny said quietly, setting down her binoculars and standing up. Harry couldn't hide the jealousy on his face when Sirius grabbed for her hand but she pulled away, leaning over to whisper to him that she would be right back. She didn't care that the match was starting or that her friends were looking at her as if she were crazy as she left the crowded box and started across the nearly vertical stands, clutching her jacket close to her as they were so high up it was windy.

~o0o~

"But I don't understand, why would she leave?" Draco asked his father again. He had shown up to the Manor late in the morning looking tired and distraught. An owl had come from Lacey but he wasn't interested in seeing it and Draco had to nearly force him to go to the game. He just didn't understand Lacey's action from what his father had told him.

"I don't know," Lucius answered gruffly, his eyes on his girlfriend as she stood on the pitch, readying to kick off. When he had woken that morning, he could barely process the disappointment he felt. Her note said that something was wrong with Ginny, and he understood the girl meant a great deal to her, but he was not used to having his plans spoiled. He had hoped he would have sent her off to her first game as his fiancée.

"Lucius, thank Merlin," Ginny rushed clumsily forward, stepping on people's feet as she pushed her way through the first row of the Coach's box, where Eddie Deverill has secured seats for him and Draco.

"Ginevra?" Lucius' eyebrow arched in surprise as he looked the girl over. She seemed frazzled, but not hurt, which was what he had expected. She took the vacant seat on the left side of Lucius, catching her breath as both Puddlemere and the Falcons kicked off into the air. The announcer started his commentary, and she talked louder to be heard over it.

"As soon as the match is over, you need to come with me to get Lacey. She has to tell you something very important…"

"I don't know if you are aware, but I was left a note by Lacey saying that you were in some sort of trouble…" Lucius said, his voice turning slowly accusatory.

Ginny rolled her eyes, not exactly surprised her best friend used her as a scapegoat, "I know, she was just trying to protect you…"

And it looks like Delaney is having some trouble with that new Firebolt of hers…

The announcer's voice stopped their conversation and all three of them looked out to the pitch. It wasn't hard to find Lacey as she was stopped in mid-air and her broom was thrashing violently as the game played around her. No one seemed to be able to get near her on their brooms, as several of her teammates tried and were forcibly reflected.

A time out was called and the stadium's buzz lowered as most watched with baited breath as she tried to keep on the broom, which looked like it was doing all it could to get her off of it.

"That's not her normal broom…something's wrong…" Ginny panicked, "Someone needs to get to her…"

"Ginny there's nothing you can do," Draco tried to be calm. He knew Lacey had more moxie in her than anyone else he knew. He was sure she could pull out of whatever this was.

Although her voice was too small to carry across the entire stadium, it was very clear that she was yelling for help. The broom jerked violently once more and it looked like it physically shocked her as her hands flew up in pain. A moment later she was free-falling towards the grass on the pitch from over 50 feet, as the broom had started acting up when she was entering a dive for the quaffle. There were so many on the ground, including the referees, trying to levitate her or slow her landing, but nothing worked. She hit the ground a second later with a dull thud.

A/N: Yikes! Would love to hear what you think in the review box!