Falling for the Unexpected (wolfstar)

No One Like You

The morning after the whole 'kissing Marlene incident', Sirius was woken up by screams. Really loud ones.

At first, he thought he had had some kind of nightmare, and quickly checked the clock above his bed for the time. 9 AM. But then, another series of screams soon followed the first one, each of them getting louder and louder.

Sirius didn't even bother changing his pijamas and immediately ran to the corridor and began following the direction of the sounds until he felt himself getting closer.

The commotion was coming from the third floor, right outside someone's bedroom, but Sirius couldn't see who's. But then he looked at the center of the small crowd of servants and selected women that was beginning to form, and he felt his heart stop.

There was a guard holding Alice's arms behind her back in what seemed to be a really painful way, and two other guards were doing the same to...another guard?

Before Sirius could even do anything or process what was going on, he heard his mother's voice coming from his right, and turned to see her and his father looking at the scene.

"What on earth is going on here?"

A guard immediately stepped forward and replied, "My queen, we found this officer kissing this woman, Alice Fortescue, inside her chambers about five minutes ago."

Horror immediately filled everyone's expressions. When Sirius turned to finally take a look at the man's face, everything suddenly made sense.

The officer that was being held was Frank Longbottom. Sirius' mind instantly went back to the conversation he had had with Alice weeks ago.

'My heart already belongs to someone else.'

'He was going to enlist. We didn't know where he would go to.'

He looked at Alice again, and found she was already looking at him, her eyes filled with guilt and shame.

That was it. The man Alice had talked about was Frank Longbottom, who had started working at the palace the day before. For those who don't believe in fate, some weird coincidence had led him to the exact place that she had gone to.

'But at what cost?' Sirius thought.

He had his answer not a second later as his mother's voice echoed through the hall.

"You both know the punishment for a crime like this," she stared at Alice and Frank with a look of pure disgust, "Death."

"NO!" Sirius shouted, horrorstruck, and subconsciously took a step forward to block Walburga's view of the couple, "Mother, I will not allow this."

Her head shot up to Sirius so quickly that it almost scared him. Almost.

"What do you mean, 'no'? Don't you understand what they just did? They betrayed us, they betrayed YOU!"

"I understand perfectly what they did, mother. But this is my Selection, not yours. I won't let them be killed."

Sirius shocked even himself with how firmly he confronted his mother on that, his head raised high so he stood towers above her.

He could see from the corner of his vision that everyone's eyes were darting between him and the queen, probably stunned by the confrontation.

Walburga stayed quiet for a moment, staring daggers at her son, but eventually she spoke up again.

"Very well. There will be no death sentence," Sirius let out a relieved sigh, but immediately found out it had been too soon, "The punishment will be whipping."