Arranged Marriage: Sirius Black and Marlene McKinnon talk.. DONT READ THE THIS LINE BELOW IF YOU DON'T WANT A SPOILER

Marlene is in an arranged marriage with Regulus. (Woah nice spoiler there, me!)

Sure, Marlene barely talked to him, and even if he could talk a girl into sleeping with him any day (Merlin, he probably didn't even need to talk), and that he didn't have the guts to say Hello to her, it didn't mean that he couldn't ask if she was okay when he found the girl crying in an empty corridor at night, when he was about to sneak in to the kitchens (James was in the Hospital Wing, Peter was off somewhere, and Remus was reading another book).

"Oi! McKinnon!" He called out, and the blonde raised her head, and it was red and blotchy and tears were stinging out of her ocean-blue eyes.

Maybe he should have called her out nicer, in the condition that she was currently in. But he still kept his act up.

"Get out, Black! I don't want to talk!" Sirius kept insisting, and found out why she wouldn't speak to him.

"I don't want to bloody talk, Regulus!" Sirius raised his eyebrows, and sat beside her. Marlene shifted away, making sure he couldn't get too close.

"Just why in Circe's name would you exactly talk to my brother?" Marlene realized her mistake, and looked more carefully at Sirius, with his warm, worried face, and his Gryffindor scarf wrapped loosely around his neck. If only she hadn't mistook him for Regulus, but the damage was done, and he needed an explanation.

"Oh.. Sorry, Sirius. Thought you were your brother." "I've noticed." He replied, a bit harshly.

The two were quiet for a while, and Marlene remembered that she was supposed to be answering Sirius' question.

"Umm.. Where were you going?" She asked, an idea coming to mind.

"To the kitchens, why?"

Marlene gave a small smile. "Let's go there, get some midnight snack ice-cream, and I'll tell you."

They talked for a while, finding out different things about each other. Sirius found out that Marlene was allergic to almost every seafood, which was ironic because her name meant 'Star of the Sea', while she found out that he's only ever shagged a grand total of four girls (none of them were Gryffindors), despite everyone else thinking that he shagged almost every girl at Hogwarts.

Sirius could notice though that she was trying to delay her answering his earlier question, and that maybe he would just forget about it, but by 2 a.m. they were still talking and he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep at all without knowing her answer.

So Sirius cut her off when she was explaining some story about her best friend, Lily Evans (James would surely kill him if he knew that he had let this opportunity pass).

"You still didn't answer my question, just wanted to remind you." Marlene tried to act like she didn't know what he was talking about, but both of them knew that he could see right through her. Sighing, she straightened up her back, mushing up her blueberry ice cream, and began to speak.

"Well, you know that my parents died a few years ago, yeah?" She seemed so calm saying this, but he knew better, that she probably wanted to destroy everything apart, huddle into a corner and cry endlessly. Sirius nodded.

"My brother and I had to move in with our aunt, and at first she was fair as a haughty pureblood maniac could be, but decent nonetheless; but I guess getting married to a death eater like Yaxley can change you." She scoffed, digging her spoon in for more ice cream.

"Of course, since I turned seventeen a couple of months ago.." Sirius gasped, clearly getting where the story was getting to. Marlene nodded.

"They looked for respectable suitors. Among them were Rabastan Lestrange, Avery, Nott, a few others, and.. Your brother, Regulus." She said, and she was tearing up again, which was very odd for him to see that the tough cookie had crumbled down into pieces.

"Every single one of them were horrible, but Regulus was the nice-.. most decent to me, so.." Sirius' eyes grew hard. Of course Regulus gets the girl, what, with his perfect grades and his prefect status and that bloody tattoo on his arm.

"You know, he told me that they were originally planning that you were to take Regulus' place." Sirius held his breath. He knew there probably would he some consequence of leaving 12 Grimmauld place, but did Merlin really have to punish Marlene, of all people, for what he did?

If he hadn't left.. He definitely would be miserable, but at least Marlene wouldn't need to suffer being there.

Sirius sighed. "Have you told anyone about the arranged marriage?" Marlene shook her head. "Not even Lily."

Sirius looked back at his strawberry ice cream, seeing that it melted. Marlene didn't tell anyone but him. She had no one, but him.

Sirius looked at Marlene, and anyone could tell that she was at a miserable state. Surely anyone could have noticed how less energetic; or that she almost never raises her hand anymore during class; or that she's not as good in DADA anymore, seeing as Lily had beaten her in a duel for the first time in class; or that she basically starves herself, only eating a piece of toast and marmalade.

He was never someone who comforted another; that was James, or Remus, and heck even Peter was better at comforting others, and that said something.

So all Sirius could do was stand up from his seat, and give Marlene a hug, no words spoken. That is, until Marlene said something that made both of them smile...

"Despite everything Regulus tried, which I have to admit isn't exactly that much, Kreacher still hates me. Said I was too much like you."

"And is that a bad thing?"

"I told Kreacher I was thankful for the compliment."

Improved: 5/31/14