If Love is a Game...

Chapter Thirty-Five

Fallen From Grace

It was Monday; and they had classes. Krystyna had stayed in the safety of the girls' dormitory all day Sunday to simply cry and say everything out loud. She had thought that if she at least confessed everything out loud even though she was alone it might help. It hadn't. She still felt lower that low--dirtier than dirt--dumber than someone with an IQ of -1981. And that was very low, very dirty, and very dumb, she had surmised.

She had just sat in the bathtub for a while not moving whatsoever. She had just sat there and stared at the wall, feeling incomplete. She was incomplete of something, but she didn't know what it was. She had stared at the wall blankly, trying to remember what she was missing.

And then the thought struck her upside the head at 100 miles per hour. She should be sitting in the common room with Sirius and all of her friends; not sitting immobile in a bathtub full of water, wondering what had gone astray in her life. But then she reminded herself that that life was no more. She supposed that that was what she felt was missing--happiness, bliss, tranquility, friendship, and love.

Then, she realized she should at least try to sleep. She had slipped into the girls' Seventh Year dormitory unnoticed and crawled into her bed. She had stared at her ceiling all night and morning, pondering on what she should do during school days. She had not been off good yesterday. And today wasn't any better.

She had gotten out of bed before anyone even awoke. She had changed into her school robes and grabbed her things without waking anyone up. The sun wasn't even passed the trees of the Forbidden Forest yet. She walked out of the Gryffindor Tower and was surprised to find that the Great Hall doors were unlocked this early.

She went inside to find that she was the first student to arrive. She would've looked shock to see a few staff members already chatting at the Staff Table, but she was too tired to even make an expression. She went to the Gryffindor table. One of them might have looked up at her, she didn't know, she kept her head down low and watched her feet. She sat at the Gryffindor table, determined not to look up.

And so, now, here Krystyna was, the only student in the Great Hall, sitting at the Gryffindor table with her face buried in her arms, trying to take a quick nap, she supposed. It was only after the first few minutes that she realized she would never fall asleep, but she kept her face in her hands to hide the tears dripping onto the wooden table from her eyes. A serene voice startled her.

"My dear, what are you up so early for?"

Krystyna thought she might have jumped out of her shoes; she had been so startled. She sat up straight and jumped in her seat. She looked around wildly through her red, puffy eyes to see the headmaster of Hogwarts himself, Professor Albus Dumbledore, looking down at her calmly through his half moon spectacles. She took a second to let her heart slow down.

"Pr-Professor..." Krystyna didn't quite know what to say.

"Krystyna Melanie, have you been crying?" Dumbledore asked her calmly. She began to splutter like a fish on dry land. She wasn't doing a very good job deceiving him. She shut her mouth. "Whatever is the matter?"

Krystyna knew she probably looked like a rabid rabbit being cornered. Her eyes darted to every angle of the room only to find that she was still the only student in the Great Hall. She was breathing rapidly and was looking a mess. She couldn't tell him. No, she couldn't tell him. People could get hurt. And she didn't want their innocent blood on her hands.

But he's Albus Dumbledore, a tiny voice in the back of her mind whispered. He can do anything.

"No-nothing is wrong, s-sir," Krystyna stammered fearfully. She looked down at the floor quickly because she couldn't lie while looking him in his serene, trusting eyes. "I'm f-fine."

"No student has ever gotten up this early since I have been at Hogwarts--and that is through my childhood, teenage, teaching, and headmaster years," Dumbledore informed her tranquilly. "And you, Miss Melanie, are not looking your best as usual. You are looking, I dare say, a tragic muddle. And if I may recall, a certain seven people were not looking normally cheerful, but dark, angry, and...numb. I also do not remember seeing you at all yesterday."

"I--I wasn't feeling well, s-sir," Krystyna stuttered. Well, it was a partial truth. She had felt sick the entire day yesterday.

"I can sense something else is wrong, Miss Melanie," Dumbledore told her softly. "Is there...something you'd like to tell me?"

Krystyna looked up at him, keeping the tears at bay.

Yes! Yes! Yes, I have so much to tell you! So much to tell! Krystyna cried out in her mind, imagining what it might look like if she told him everything. I have so much to tell! Yes!

"No, professor, I don't."

Dumbledore sighed wearily. "Be that as it may, if you feel the need to talk to me, please ask and I will certainly most talk with you. Good day, Miss Melanie." He made his way up to the Staff Table. She watched him sit down and then she heard a noise. She looked over and saw a few Ravenclaws entering the Great Hall. When they saw her, she was not surprised to see them shoot sharp glares at her. She put her face in her arms again.

~*~

"Well, well, look who it is, little Miss Cheater!" a cold voice exclaimed behind her. She didn't want to raise her head so she didn't. She knew perfectly well who it was; it was James. She did say anything to him. "What are you doing sitting over here? Shouldn't you be sitting at the Slytherin table with your sweetie, hm?"

"Go bug someone else, James, I beg of you," Krystyna finally replied, her voice muffled. It was just the beginning, but she was already tired of it. She didn't think she'd make it through the rest of the school year, much less the rest of life.

"Oh, no, Melanie, you wrecked my friend, and I'm going to make sure I wreck you," James said nastily, glaring at her. She snorted. Now, she really didn't need any help doing that; she could do it entirely on her own. He narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously.

"Sorry, James, but I'm already a wreck," Krystyna sighed wearily, taking her face out of her arms to let him see how messed up she was. She thought he looked ready to jump back in surprise. He raised his eyebrows at her.

"Are you feeling guilty?" James questioned.

"You could say that," Krystyna said, rubbing her red eyes again, "along with many other things."

"Well you should be and if you don't, I'll be making sure that you do," James responded icily, "because I'm not too happy with what you've done. He really cared about you and you're around with Malfoy on the sly from us. You broke him."

"Yes, so sorry about that. Now, can you leave me alone so I can mule over how pointless my miserable little life is by myself," Krystyna snapped moodily. She really couldn't take this at the moment. She was already dreading Quidditch practice. She had thought that she might resign. She didn't know if she would be able to make it without falling asleep on her broom.

"I'd be happy to end it for you," James told her. Krystyna wasn't sure if he was being honest or dishonest by the tone of his voice so she put her face back into her arms.

"James Potter, shove off!" That had been Lorena's voice; and she sounded irritated. Krystyna wondered what they were doing at the moment. He probably wasn't taking this too well.

"But, Lorena, she--"

"Did you not hear me clearly? Do you need to see my wand? I said go away!"

Krystyna heard James mumbling things under his breath and stalking away. Lorena muttered something that she couldn't understand and then she sat down next to her. They were silent for a few minutes, neither of them really knowing what to say.

"I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner," Lorena apologized resignedly. "I couldn't get out of bed. What time did you wake up?"

"Yesterday morning," Krystyna's muffled reply came.

"Oh, you didn't fall asleep," Lorena sighed. They didn't speak much after that. With more people coming into the Great Hall, Krystyna knew more torment was likely to come. Sure enough, a few people--mostly girls--said a few nasty things to her, only to get snapped at by a grumpy Lorena.

"So, how many other boys are on your list, Melanie?" a Ravenclaw girl asked snidely.

"Tell me something, Corset, how old do you want to live to be?" Lorena asked, her anger tipping over the scale. She had somehow managed to look calm. The Ravenclaw, Cassandra Corset, a Seventh Year, gave her a perplexed look.

"Excuse me?" Cassandra replied indignantly.

"How old do you want to live to be?" Lorena repeated in the same voice as before. Cassandra sneered at her and then glanced at the pitiful looking Krystyna before she looked at Lorena again.

"I don't think it really matters," Cassandra said snootily. "Besides, I also think that this has nothing to do with you. This is only between Melanie and me--"

"Oh, I think it has a lot to do with me considering it's my cousin, my friends, and this is my friend you're being rude to!" Lorena snapped angrily. "If you want to live into old age, I suggest you get your arse into high gear and get your snotty little self back over to your own table!"

Needless to say, Cassandra did exactly what she was told without any complaint.

"You don't need to get yourself hated by the entire Hogwarts population too, you know, Lorena," Krystyna said in a muffled voice with her face still buried in her arms, food all around them. Lorena shrugged her shoulders and waved her hand in the air dismissively.

"Bah, I don't care," she replied calmly. "Besides, Corset and I already dislike each other. Actually, now that I think about it, probably more than half of the Hogwarts population hates me...hm... Oh well. Now, I think you should eat. I know for a fact that you didn't eat anything yesterday."

"I'm not hungry," came Krystyna's response.

Lorena huffed. "I didn't ask if you were hungry or not. I'm telling you. You're eating because I'm not having my friend waste away to nothing! Eat, I tell you, eat! Pig out! Do something! Usually, people who are depressed eat..."

"Did you eat a lot when you were depressed, Lorena?" Krystyna asked moodily, peeking out at her from underneath her arm with one eye. Lorena frowned at her.

"Well, no, I barely touched anything," Lorena sighed thoughtfully. Krystyna lied her arm back down in the position it had been before. Lorena's frown deepened. "But that doesn't mean anything! You're eating whether you like it or not! Don't make me force down food with my wand, Krystyna, because I will if I have to. You are not going to fade away on me, here me!?"

Something clicked and Lorena gasped, bringing her hand to her mouth. "Oh, no, I'm so sorry, Krystyna. I didn't mean to--practically--yell at you! I just... ant you to live."

"And for what should I live for?" Krystyna retorted coldly.

"For Sirius and all of us," Lorena said quietly, looking down at her fumbling fingers. Krystyna looked up at her slowly with tearful eyes. "He still loves you. I can see it in his eyes. I--I gotta go meet Remus, but if you want to talk to someone, I'll be there for you."

"Thanks, Lorena," Krystyna whispered. Lorena got up and slowly walked away, throwing her backpack over her shoulder. Well, that was two people who would be there for her to talk to, but only one of them could she talk to. Dumbledore was an "Off Limits" talking person.

He'd seen right through me and find out everything and then there would be disaster and it would be all of my fault and people would be dead and I'd be even sadder and--I'm not even speaking and I've been holding my breath this entire time. I must breathe more often. Well, here's to the first miserable class of my life. Ah, Potions, what more could I ask for?

~*~

Potions class was horrible--well, that was the largest understatement of the year. She had sat alone at a table. She saw Lorena walk in with the others and when they connected eyes, Krystyna saw that her friend looked torn up. She looked away when the others looked in her direction. She sunk in her seat as low as she could go.

I will not look at them. I will not speak to them I will ignore them completely--no, I will just try to forget them. Yes, that's what I'll do. Forget. Forget.

For some reason, Krystyna didn't seem to be forgetting them and the reason why she wanted to so desperately forget them. She sighed despairingly and tried to hide her tear stained face in her Potions' textbook. She could feel their (Sirius's and James's) hateful eyes glaring at the back of her head. For the first time in her life, she wished Professor Lector would show up. When he finally did come around, she thought she might hug him, but then decided against that quickly.

Professor Lector surveyed the classroom with little interest, but then saw something that made his eyebrows rise up. Though he didn't much care about the doings and problems of his students, he was surprised to see a huge gap between Sirius Black and Krystyna Melanie, who had been inseparable this past half year. He frowned and then dismissed it. He didn't really care.

They didn't get joined up into pairs, luckily. Krystyna didn't know what she would've done if she had gotten put together with one of those six. They were brewing the Invisibility Potion. She stared into her own batch--almost longingly. What she would give now to just become invisible... She sighed and stirred it again listlessly; she was very lethargic.

"Hey, you wouldn't happen to have any extra Shriveling Figs, would you?" someone asked. Krystyna looked up from her concoction to see Lorena standing in front of her calmly. "No one else has any extra and I didn't have enough."

"You're just saying that so you could have an excuse to come over here," Krystyna muttered, looking back down to her potion. She fingered with some Shriveling Figs and then handed Lorena some with shaky hands. "Did you have something to say?"

"It's called the art of Subtle Hinting, Krys," Lorena mumbled, glancing at Lucius Malfoy throwing some newts' eyes into his batch. She looked back at Krystyna, who was looking skeptically at her.

"I told you not to tell anyone, Lorena," Krystyna murmured seriously. "If you tell someone, someone else is going to get hurt--possibly killed--and that's not going to happen."

"I'm not saying anything," Lorena replied calmly. "I'm just painting a picture for them to look at and then figure out what it is. I'm promised you; I'm going to fix this for you. You'll see."

"No, I don't want to see. I don't want to see anything," Krystyna whispered, "because if I see something, someone else will see that same something and alert Samuel or my father. Lorena, you told me that you wouldn't tell."

"And I'm not; I'm not telling anyone anything. Nobody said we couldn't hint, now did they?" Lorena said cunningly, grinning faintly. Krystyna opened her mouth to object, but then, she added, "Listen; if anything happens, it will not be your fault. It will be my own. If someone does get killed or hurt, I'll throw myself at myself at your brother's feet and shake my bom-bom while spilling the beans! I'm that confident. For once in my life, Krystyna, let me do something that will help you. I owe you that much."

Krystyna thought about what she said. Maybe if they just figured it out on their own with a little help from Lorena she could get out of this mess... But what happens if someone found out and told Samuel or someone else? Before she could tell Lorena to stop, Lorena walked away, seeming to have read Krystyna's mind and left. That girl was so obstinate.

"Miss Melanie, are you going to add that ladle to your potion?" Professor Lector questioned, bringing her out of her reverie immediately and startling her. She jerked the ladle in her hands out of her potion from shock, accidentally spraying him with drops of her potion. She grimaced.

"I'm so sorry, Professor!" Krystyna gasped, horrified with what she had just done. "I..."

"Five points from Gryffindor for reckless endangerment, Melanie," Lector muttered, cleaning himself and walking away from her. This day just couldn't possibly get any worse.

But it could.

~*~

Krystyna stormed out of the Potions' classroom as fast as possible. With her textbook clutched tightly to her chest and her pack over her shoulder, she walked fast to her next class, Ancient Runes. There was a constricting knot in her stomach and the dread of sitting in another room with Sirius; she was not really feeling her best. In fact, she felt terribly sick again. Maybe she could go to the Hospital Wing and skive off of the class. It wasn't like she would be lying about not feeling well.

"Why are you walking so fast, Melanie?" James's voice called snidely from behind her. "Do you have a hot date with a certain Slytherin?" She kept her head very low and let her long black bangs fall across her eyes in an attempt to cover up the tears stinging her eyes. She tried to walk faster to get away, but he was determined to ruin her life; he jogged to catch up with her.

"So, tell me, how does it feel to date a Slytherin?" James asked her, glaring at her. "Is it nice? Tell me, what does the Slytherin common room look like? Is it nicer than the Gryffindor common room? I suppose it is."

"I wouldn't know," Krystyna finally retorted angrily. She just wanted him to leave her alone. He smirked at her and shook his head.

"You might as well be out in the open with this relationship with Malfoy," James told her calmly. "Everyone in all of Hogwarts knows about it and we all know about it. C'mon, if you just open up, you can have friends again--oh, of course, they'd be Slytherin friends, that is, as you are ignoring us."

"I don't want any Slytherin friends," Krystyna replied lowly. He sighed and leaned in a little.

"Then you must not want any friends because everyone else from every other house is smart enough to not be your friend," James told her forebodingly. "No one wants a backstabbing cheater for a friend except Slytherins because they are those things. Haven't ever heard the saying, 'Friends don't stab friends in the back; they stab them in the front'?"

"Of course, I have--"

"I guess we weren't your friends then," James growled angrily.

"James, I'll gladly stab you in the front of everyone here if you don't leave her alone!" Lorena shouted at him, pushing her way through the crowd for them. He glared at her one last time before he took off so Lorena couldn't hex him. She stopped and pointed her wand at him. "Nexum!"

James's untied shoelaces immediately tied up together and he came crashing down to the floor. Lorena smiled triumphantly and slipped her wand back into her pocket. She put a strand of her blond hair behind her ears and out of her eyes. She merely smiled at Krystyna sadly and walked away back into the crowd before she could say anything to here.

"Lorena, you get back here and untie these shoelaces! They won't let me untie them!" James yelled heatedly, sitting on the ground and pulling at his undoable shoelaces. "I'll give you detention for doing this to me! I'm Head Boy! Get back here, Lorena! Lorena!!"

"James, calm down, there's a simple spell," Lily said soothingly. She bent down to his level and tapped her wind on the laces of his shoes, muttering, "Solutum." They immediately came undone. "Now..."

Krystyna didn't hear anymore because she picked up her pace when she passed them and connected concerned eyes with Lily. She wasn't quite paying attention to where she was going and she bumped into someone roughly, dropping all of her things in her arms onto the ground and falling back herself. She got onto her knees to gather her things immediately.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..." Krystyna looked up to see a glowering Sirius standing in front of her looking livid. She looked back down and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and opened them again, continuing to gather her things. She slowly stood up, diverting her eyes from him and keeping her head very low. She moved to the side to walk around him, but he jumped in front of her. She sighed not with frustration, but with fatigue.

"Why? I want to know why? What exactly did I not give you that Malfoy could?" Sirius asked her lowly, glowering at her. He wanted her to look at him--to tell him--so he wouldn't feel so angry with her anymore. She didn't open her mouth. She wouldn't speak to him. She had told herself that she would never talk to him again because it hurt too much. Her throat was constricting. She didn't know if she could talk, even if she wanted to. "What did I do wrong? I gave you the world and yet you still weren't happy with that! Tell me! What don't I have that Malfoy does?"

Krystyna wouldn't open her mouth and wouldn't look up at him. She would utter a single word whenever she saw him. It was beginning to frustrate. She was refusing him and all he wanted was a few simple answers, but no, she would not give in. She would never know how much she had hurt him on the inside two nights ago. She would never know how much he yearned just for that reply.

"Why won't you answer me?" Sirius demanded. "Just tell me! What couldn't I give you that Malfoy could? What didn't I do that Malfoy did? What did I do that Malfoy didn't? Was I too nice? Did I not give you enough of what you wanted? Was I too sweet? Was I too average? Did I ignore you too much? What went wrong? What did I do?"

She was frustrating him beyond belief. He just wanted a response from her. He no longer cared for an answer. He would settle for a single word to be uttered from her mouth. He found himself just wanting to hear her voice again. But she wasn't speaking. She was confusing him. She was irritating him. She was testing what little patience he had.

"Tell me, Krystyna! Where did I do wrong?!" Sirius nearly yelled at her. He grabbed her arms tightly and shook her a little. He just wanted a reaction from her.

She brought her eyes up to his and he saw something in them...something in them that scared him half to death. He'd seen those eyes before. In his mind, he had a flashback to when they had first slow danced--when she had made him promise those things and she had looked him in the eyes--when he promised her and she gave him that wan smile... The fear. He had told himself that he never wanted to see that look in her eyes again...

He snapped out of his reverie and looked her back in the eyes. She was looking scared and sad at the same time and he hated the look. He was still gripping her arms stringently. She looked as if she had stopped breathing all together. Krystyna didn't think he would ever do that. For the first time in her life, she actually felt fearful of Sirius. She didn't understand the look in his eyes.

Sirius let go of her arms and took a few awkward steps backward, away from her, just staring at her with that strange look in his eyes that she couldn't understand. He had been hurt a minute ago. He had so truthful eyes, but right now, she couldn't read them. They were silent, just staring back at the other.

"Why won't you speak to me?" Sirius asked in a barely audible whisper. She bowed her head, stopping herself from answering him. She wanted to answer him--tell him the truth--but if she did, he would find out and he could die an early death. She didn't say anything.

He clenched his fists, his sadness resorting to anger again. He stomped towards her and wrestled her Potions' textbook out of her arms. She looked up at him quickly, seeing him hold her book in the air with a nasty look on his face. Tears were welling in her blue eyes.

A sudden mixed feeling flooded inside of Sirius's mind. He wanted to lash out at her--but he wanted to comfort her. He wanted to scream at her--but he wanted to wipe her tears away. He wanted to hurt her--but he wanted to pull her into a soothing hug and whisper that it was alright. He shoved the thoughts to the back of his mind.

"You'll find that I can be a very nasty person when someone does something to hurt my friends or me, Krystyna, and you have done both," Sirius seethed irately. "I gave you my heart and you washed it down a toilet. I don't understand why and you won't tell me why, so I guess I'm just going to have to keep trying until you do answer me. And I can be very cruel."

He tossed her book behind her and she hit the ground, falling down the steps back into the dungeons of Slytherin. He brushed her roughly; and she fell backwards again, her things falling down again. He turned around to glare at her one last time before trudging away from her. Her ink bottle clinked down the stone steps until she heard it crash at the bottom and shatter.

Krystyna closed her eyes and took a breath, tears seeping out from underneath her eyelids. She opened them up and began to gather her things again on her knees. She went to grab her Ancient Runes book when someone kicked it on purpose and he it flew out from beneath her fingertips. People stomped onto her notes and ripped them. They bent down and took her spare ink bottles and quills.

When she finally gathered her things up, a forth of her notes were torn, she had one quill left, no ink bottles with her, and a few pages in her Potions' textbook were in tatters. She hid the tears and pain in her eyes and scampered to Ancient Runes.

Krystyna ducked one hex from a Ravenclaw girl and then pulled herself in the classroom, another hex bouncing off of the door when she closed it. She sighed with relief and leaned against the door. When she realized other students needed to get into the classroom, she reluctantly stood up straight and sat down at an empty table.

~*~

It was Monday afternoon, and that meant Quidditch practice. Krystyna had been dreading it all morning and all of yesterday. James was going to be there. Luckily, Lorena was also a Chaser so she would not be alone in this. She supposed she should be thankful for that. She was just afraid at how the other people on her would react with her.

She arrived at the Quidditch Pitch in her Quidditch robes with her brand new racing broom on time. She felt a huge pang of guilt when she remembered Sirius had bought her this broom. He probably would think she had just been using him. She sighed sorrowfully. She saw Lorena staring up into the sky with her broom hanging over her shoulder.

"Hey," Krystyna called. She looked over at her and gave a faint smile. "Is James here yet?" She nodded her head and kept her lips pursed, looking back up into the sky. "What are you doing?"

"Watching the clouds pass over us," Lorena said distantly, still looking up at the sky and not at her. "It looks like it's going to storm tonight. Hm, first rain of the new year."

"You never make any sense when you're sad, do you know that, Lorena?" Krystyna wondered out loud, heaving a long sigh. She looked over her friend, who had a look of serenity across her face and seemed to have thrown her depressed look in a trunk for later. She saw the others heading for them in the distance and she looked down at the ground.

Odd, isn't it? How Lorena looks up to the sky and I look down to the ground, Krystyna thought wearily as she glared at a blade of grass. I wonder if that means anything. Maybe it means I should look up when I'm feeling down and things will get alright... or that I should watch out for some owl poop.

Now that Krystyna saw their faces clearly when she glanced up, she saw that her remaining teammates weren't looking to happy to see her. They looked like they had been wishing that she would've fallen off a cliff or something. They were looking angry.

Oh, dear heavens, not again...

"Good gravy, I thought you were going to play for the Slytherin Quidditch team since you're obviously against us Gryffindors, Melanie," James sneered smoothly, leering at her while leaning against the wall of the Quidditch stadium. Lorena shot him a heated glare. "Calm down, Lorena; it's not like she's your friend or anything--"

"Do you want me to hit you over the head with the Quaffle when I get it, James?" Lorena snapped angrily at him. He shut his mouth for now.

They started practice, but Krystyna found that she didn't really need to be there at all. Claire Higgs, the Fifth Year Chaser, would not pass Krystyna the Quaffle unless she wasn't paying attention--probably in hopes that she would hit her in the back of the head and make her fall off of her broom (she worshipped the ground Sirius walked on, honestly). Lorena passed her the Quaffle, luckily. James was as big as a prat as he could possibly be. Mark Jennings and Brandon Sloper, the beaters, were batting the Bludgers at her left and right. She couldn't pay attention to the Quaffle unless she wanted to get murdered by the Bludgers (really, those people needed to stop trying to murder her and get a life). Hector Wood, the keeper, was trying his very best to not let her score.

At the moment, Krystyna was hanging in mid-air, having just dodged yet another Bludger and waiting for a single that she might touch the Quaffle again. James swerved along side her and rammed into her, just about knocking her off her broom. He was probably disheartened that he didn't succeed in doing so. He frowned at her.

"You don't belong in Gryffindor and you never will," James declared. She looked over at him. "But that's not what I'm here for, now is it? What I want to know is what Lorena was talking about this morning when she said something about smoke and mirrors. What is she talking about? What other deceits have you been doing behind our backs?"

"Crying, if you can call that a deceit," Krystyna replied. He glared at her.

"I hope you shrivel up like a great prune from crying too much," James noted, sounding truthful. You could never tell if he was being truthful or not. He never changed his tone. He was what Lorena called a 'Mixed Signals Sender', which she most definitely agreed with.

"Hm, funny, that's what I'm hoping for, too," Krystyna retorted icily.

"Then do it," James growled coldly. "I think it's the least you can do for Sirius."

He kicked her broom and flew away, leaving her feeling empty once again. It was strange how James could make anyone feel like that. She saw Lorena refrain herself from taking Mark's club and smacking a Bludger at James. She looked ready to do it, too. Krystyna sighed and let a few tears drop to the ground.

~*~

Practice had ended. They touched the ground, and it was dark. Dark ominous clouds hung over them; it was going to rain, just like Lorena had predicted. Most had left. It was just James, who was gathering his things, Lorena, and her left now.

James stood up straight with all of his things in his arms and glowered at her. He looked over at Lorena and then called, "I'll tell Remus you'll be up soon, okay?"

"No, tell him I'll be out here," Lorena replied oddly. Both James and Krystyna whipped their heads in her direction, looking as if they thought she was crazy. She was still looking up at the sky wistfully again. She was regretting something; Krystyna could tell. She was always strangely serene and odd when she was regretful of something.

"Um...but it's going to rain, Lorena!" James told her bemusedly.

"That's why I'm staying out here," Lorena said coolly. He scratched his head and sighed.

"Er...okay, I'll tell him that," James called again. He shrugged his shoulders and headed for the castle without another word. Krystyna glanced at Lorena and then headed up for the castle herself. If Lorena wanted to get drenched, then so be it.

When Krystyna got to the castle it began to pour almost immediately. She turned around to look at Lorena through the large drops of rain. She saw her friend still staring up into the sky; her eyes were most likely closed; the rain was sliding down her cheeks; her were robes beginning to go limp and stick to her body. And then her head dropped; and Krystyna wondered if those were tears or raindrops falling from Lorena's face. She couldn't really tell from this distance. It rained harder.

Suddenly, she saw Lorena fall to her knees and into the ground, which had turned into sloppy, brown mud from the downpour. It had not been a slow, sinking fall, but a drop like her knees had just given way from underneath her. Her hands were lying limply on the ground and her head was still hanging low. Lorena raised her head up and screamed something at the storm, letting the water splash against her face again.

Krystyna felt more miserable looking at her despondent friend in the rain than she had been feeling for two days. It was like she could feel Lorena's pain and her pain together. More unwanted tears slipped from her eyes and crashed into the ground.

Suddenly, in a flash of colors, Remus brushed passed Krystyna hastily and ran through the rain towards Lorena. When she saw him fall to her knees beside her and wrap his arms around her, she felt a rush of wanting--longing--rise inside her chest. She wanted to have someone comfort her now. She wanted Sirius to be beside her, holding her and whispering gently in her ear that it would be alright. She wrapped her arms around herself, hoping to rid of the cold darkness swelling around inside her heart. That's when the sudden realization hit her. She was...forlorn and alone.

Out in the rain, Remus took his wet jacket off and wrapped it around Lorena in false hopes that it would keep her from getting sick. He seemed to have forgotten that it was all wet now. But it didn't matter that it wouldn't keep her any warmer. Krystyna now saw that she was crying and Remus held her closely as she sobbed into his shoulder.

This was the third time in her life that Krystyna had seen Lorena cry in public. The first had been when they were in their First Year. Marcus had grabbed her by the arm and yanked her along down a corridor very angrily; she had been sobbing the entire way, but he merely dragged her along cruelly, snapping at her irately here and there. The second time had been on the train on the way up her after the Christmas holidays. And now this.

Remus helped her to her feet, but she was still sobbing into his shoulder. He held her close and she seemed to be leaning on him for support, her arms wrapped around his neck. Krystyna suddenly found herself wishing that she could cry onto someone's shoulder like that--Sirius's shoulder. A few more tears fell and she turned to walk away. She headed up to the Gryffindor common room, prepared for whatever Sirius might say to her.