The Marauders: Year One (female)

40. You're Not So Bad, Black

Lillian folded the letter in his pocket, and was about to head off to the Owlery. As he walked off, he heard a bit of sniffling coming from underneath a table.

He looked under, and to his surprise, he saw a shaggy black head laid on top of a curled up pair of knees. Lillian knelt beside it. 'Sirius?' he asked gently. 'Sirius?'

Sirius looked up, her eyes rimmed with red. 'Go away, Evans,' she said, swiping across her eyes with the back of her hand.

Lillian ignored her. 'What's the matter? Why are you crying?'

Sirius glared at her. 'I'm not crying,' she snapped.

'It's okay to cry, you know,' Lillian said, shuffling under the table next to Sirius. 'You don't have to hide.'

In the House of Black, crying had been looked down upon, as well as any sign of emotion or affection. Sirius shrugged and turned away.

'Come on,' pressed Lillian. 'Tell me what's wrong. I won't judge.'

Sirius looked at Lillian blearily. 'If I tell you, Evans, you'll hate me forever.'

'Of course I won't! I mean, I already hate you forever,' Lillian said, butting Sirius's shoudler to let her know it was a joke.

Sirius stared at him blankly.

Lillian blushed. 'Sorry, bad joke. But the point is, whatever it is, I won't judge.'

'For this, you will,' said Sirius bleakly.

'It's not like you murdered anybody or sent Remus to hospital, is it?'

As Sirius stared at him, Lillian blanched. 'I mean, you didn't, right?'

Something in Sirius snapped, and she finally let it all out. 'I'm sorry, okay? It was an accident. We were playing a game, and it was my idea, Bedroom Quidditch-'

Lillian tutted and shook his head. Sirius went on. 'And Remus was trying to score a goal, and I slipped and thumped on top of her, and she has these huge bandages, and she goes to visit her sick mother every month, and they split open and there was blood everywhere-'

Lillian let out a gasp of horror, his eyes wide. He gestured at Sirius to keep going. 'And then Remus ran to the loo, and I followed her, and I kept asking questions, and she freaked and ran off and then the next morning she was gone and we heard she was in St. Mungo's. And it's all my fault.'

Lillian swallowed a couple times. 'It's not your fault, Sirius. You didn't know. It's whoever hurt her's fault, not yours.'

He pulled Sirius's head on to his shoudler.

'You mustn't tell anyone,' Sirius said anxiously.

Lillian patted her head reassuringly. 'Of course I won't.' He remembered when Sirius had comforted him like this, about Patrick.

'Do you think someone's hurting her at home or something?' Sirius asked.

'They'd better not be,' Lillian muttered darkly. Sirius caught a sense of how formidable Lillian could be, and for a second, she was glad that she wasn't truly his enemy.

'You know, you're not so bad, Black,' Lillian laughed.

Sirius thought of her family. They were truly evil. And they had passed it on to her. She could pretend and hide all she liked, but one day, the bad was just going to come oozing out of her like black blood...

And it had hurt Remus. A single tear slid down her cheek, and off her nose.