Padfoot and The Mermaid

Chapter Thirty ~ Is It Too Late?

(y/n) stood in front of the back side of the painted woman, she was hesitant on going out, she'd already had to deal with so many questions from the girls in the dorms, though she knew it would only get worse from now on. Who knows what would happen when she'd be forced to face the whole school.

"Are you alright?" Sirius muttered, he reached out to grab onto one of (y/n)'s hands, she didn't resist him, though she didn't quite hold his hand back. 

"I'm fine." (y/n) stammered, her tone was filled with annoyance, not towards anyone in particular, but in the situation in general.

The two headed out into the halls, things were surprisingly calm on the way to the dining area, besides the staring, whispering, and small remarks said by people passing by.

"See, nothing to worry about." Sirius said, his voice was very calm and endearing, though (y/n) still couldn't shed that feeling of annoyance.

"We'll see." (y/n) said, she wasn't going to rejoice yet, they hadn't even reached the Great Hall yet. The girl was prepared for the worst of the worst, therefore she was relatively calm, since she was expecting to be harassed the second she awoke from her bed. (y/n) was still bound to find trouble somewhere in the school, and as luck would have it, there would be loads of it in the Great Hall, where dozens of faces turned to stare at the girl, and the boy who was joined at her hip.

Some of the students had made moving pins and banners with the words 'siren' and 'fish girl', the girl rolled her eyes at those who did participate in the pitiful activities. Luckily, none of the Gryffindors were wearing anything of the sorts, mainly because the Marauders would end their lives in the blink of an eye.

Still, the red and gold table was having a field day, since the 'mermaid of Hogwarts' happened to be a fellow lion. To (y/n)'s luck, and surprise, most of her fellow house members had remarks that were relatively friendly.

"No, I can't shoot lasers out of my eyes."

"Yes I can breathe underwater."

"And I don't feel comfortable answering that." (y/n) said, she covered her ears and slumped her head down on the table.

"Alright enough, that's enough questions." Sirius said, he pushed away as many feeble faces as he could before they began to retaliate.

"Well what about you Sirius, are you a fish too?" A little first year beamed, he was simply confused by all the commotion, all the first through third years were going off of rumors, none of them were permitted to go to the ball.

"No, I'm just looking after my girlfriend." The boy snarled, he was more taken aback by the whole ordeal than (y/n) was, which was confusing to the boy. Shouldn't she care more about what people had to say about her?

"I'm surprised you two are still together, I guess love really is blind." One of the prefects snarled, he was a good friend of James, though now he was getting a lot of lash back from the boy.

"You should be ashamed of yourself." James scoffed, the rest of the Marauders trailed behind him.

"We should go." Remus said, gestured for (y/n) and Sirius to join them, Lily also joined the group and followed them to wherever they were going.

The group was headed to the lake, no one would dare go there, not after it had been marked off limits by Dumbledore, with a heavy price of expulsion if the rule was broken.

"Well that was."

"Better than expected." (y/n) said, she seemed awfully calm, though she still felt slightly annoyed, she just didn't understand why.

"But it's still out of hand." Remus said, he felt the worst out of the Marauders because he believed that if he'd just been fast enough, that he could have prevented the whole thing from happening. The truth was the Remus was never going to save (y/n) in time, no matter how hard he tried, so it wasn't worth it to beat himself up over the whole ordeal. Though part of his guilt was unrelated to the dance, it almost felt unfair that (y/n) should have to be alone when he too had a secret that could be exposed. Though it was probably best the Remus' didn't reveal himself to the school, since they don't take very kindly to werewolves either.