Wasting Time

2

"Sirius Black, I hate you!" I yelled at him across the common room.

"Oh you and I both wish that was true, don't we?" He shouted back.

I lowered my voice and glared at him. "Elizabeth Vane? I mean come on, you have to be fucking kidding me," I said coldly.

Sirius hated it when I was cold. If we were going to fight, he wanted a screaming match. Which he usually got, if I was being honest.

"Why do you care? We're not together McKinnon," he snapped in reply.

Overcome with rage and frustration, I threw the shoe in my hand across the room at him and turned around, walking into my dormitory.

It had been quite a nasty shock when I had boarded the Hogwarts express and followed Lily into our compartment to see that, despite my recent breakup with Sirius, our friends had finally seemed to meld into one group. Had that happened earlier, we likely wouldn't have broken up, so it felt like a slap in the face. What had been an even nastier shock though, had been walking in on Sirius and Elizabeth Vane, a girl who had caused one of our nastiest fights.

Lily entered the room shortly after me. "I don't want to hear it." I told her before she could open her mouth.

"Well too bad. You need to. How can you possibly think that what's going on with you and Black is healthy? You just tear each other apart and then what? You're fine for a couple days. Is that really what you want? Don't you want to be happy?" I turned to look at her, glaring.

"He does make me happy. Anyway, relationships aren't always sunshine and roses, and you're old enough to know that by now. Pull your head out of the clouds. People fight. Stop trying to prove that we're bad for each other so you can stop feeling guilty for our break up! We broke up because of you Lily, and I haven't blamed you or complained about it once. So stop trying to show me that it wasn't your fault, because it was."

Before she could reply, there was a knock on the door. I brushed past Lily to open it. I was shocked when I saw Sirius.

"McKinnon, you can't just walk away from me like that." I crossed my arms.

"How did you even get up here?" I glared at him.

"That's not important. I want to finish what we started." 

Lily watched us interact like someone watching a car crash

"Fine. Lily, we can finish talking about this later. Can you leave me and Black alone?"

She nodded silently and walked towards the door. As she walked past me, she grabbed my hand and gave it a quick squeeze. After the door closed behind her, I raised an eyebrow at Sirius.

"What?"

"You wanted to finish this. Say something," I said coldly.

"I just want you to explain what you're so mad about!"

"What I'm mad about? Sirius, as long as you expect to keep sticking that thing in your pants inside me, I deserve to know where else you're putting it. That's all I'm asking. I don't care who you're sleeping with, just let me know. You have no idea how stupid I just felt! I mean god, Elizabeth Vane of all people?"

"It's not like you're giving me a list of everyone you're sleeping with!"

"I'm not sleeping with anyone else."

"You aren't sleeping with anyone else? But James said-" I cut him off before he could say anymore, silently cursing James.

"That was the summer. When I wasn't sleeping with you. We were broken up, and my parents had just died. What did you expect me to do? I couldn't just sit around all summer waiting for you and hoping things would get better."

"I thought...I thought you didn't want me anymore."

He looked more vulnerable than he usually let himself. James and I had seen him like this before, but we were the only ones. He always wanted to be the tough guy who didn't care about anything. Only James and I knew that he actually cared about everything.

"Sirius, I always want you. But if you changed your mind about us, you should tell me so I don't keep wasting me time on you. I have a line up of boys and girls who would happily be in your place."

"I haven't changed my mind McKinnon." I sat down on the edge of my bed and sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose.

"Then act like it."  He sat down next to me and grabbed my free hand.

"What are we doing Marlene?" I looked up when he used my first name.

"I don't know. We're wasting time."

"It was stupid for us to break up." I leaned my head on his shoulder.

"I know."

"Can you please be my girlfriend again?"

"I can't. Not today. I love you Sirius, but I'm too mad right now. Just because I miss you doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want and I'll just forget about it. You knew exactly what you were doing when you slept with her, of all people."

He nodded sadly. "Maybe I should go,"

"Yeah, I think you should." I said sadly.

I watched as he walked out of the door, not letting go of my hand until we were out of reach. I stared at the door for a moment, before reaching under my bed and grabbing a box full of Polaroid pictures. Pictures of Sirius, pictures he had taken of me. Pictures others had taken of us. And for the first time since my parents died, I cried. The longer I spent apart from Sirius, the more it felt like there was a gaping hole in my chest. And right then, the edges of the hole hurt more than usual.