...."GET UP, YOU lazy sod!" cried the jarring voice of Benny Shepherd. Jackie groaned and opened her eyes slightly, screwing them up at the insufferable amount of sunlight in the room. She turned on her stomach and shoved her face into the pillow, trying to get another five minutes sleep. For that she was awarded a smack on the back of the head with Benny's pillow.

Everyone knew that Benny was like a kid on Christmas during Hogsmeade days. But surely there was no need to be up this early on a Saturday morning. Jackie could hear Cordelia shrieking "Piss off Benny!!" from her bed in the corner. But alas, the woman could not be deterred and they were up and heading down to breakfast within the hour.

Benny looked at each sleepy face as they gradually came down one by one from the dorms. "Cheer up ladies, it's Hogsmeade day."

Jackie shot her a half-hearted glare. "You'll be lucky if you make it to Hogsmeade today." She grumbled.

Benny just gave her an even wider grin at the weak threat.

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"What are these trousers called?" Jackie inquired, tugging at the belt loop of blue jeans Cordelia had donned for their trip into Hogsmeade.

"Bellbottoms. They're a muggle trend, they make your arse look fantastic." She answered with a cheeky grin.

"I do love a good muggle invention." Sighed Jackie teasingly as the other girl gave a little spin to show them at all angles. Jackie so longed for those less conservative muggle-style clothes but her father would only end up burning them upon her return.

They sat down at the breakfast table and began filling their plates with bacon and toast. Benny was just laying out her plans for the day when Jackie looking up to see Regulus striding in, his usual graceful steps still very much in place.

He had been avoiding her and all the girls since their argument and that surprised her. She thought he would have at least tried to make amends. For Jackie was as stubborn as a mule and she certainly wasn't going to apologize first.

Elizabeth followed the line of her gaze and looked over to her. "We haven't heard much from Regulus recently, I finished off his feather hemmed robes and he still hasn't come to see them." She remarked with a scowl.

Jackie didn't have the heart to tell her that she didn't think Regulus had any interest in canary-yellow, feather hemmed robes. Even on a good day.

She considered her options for a second and decided that she couldn't ignore it and hope it would become any less of a reality for much longer. Plus, she had come to the conclusion that Regulus had not done what she asked and hadn't bothered asking his mother to retract the betrothal.

"This is probably why." She said to Elizabeth, pulling the letter from her father out of her coat pocket and handing it to her. The two other girls were looking up at her now and once Elizabeth had finished reading, she passed it over to them too.

"Oh Jackie" she murmured sadly, "You're too young to think about all that yet." Elizabeth wrapped her arms around the girl's shoulder, pulling her in for a tight motherly hug.

When Cordelia had finished reading, she passed it to Benny without a word and reached out to grab Jackie's hand, giving it a tight comforting squeeze and a soft sad smile.

Surprisingly it was soft-hearted Benny who reacted the most explosively. "But they can't do that! You're only sixteen!" she demanded adamantly. Her brow was furrowed in confusion and anger.

"My father can do whatever he wants until I'm of age. He'll only make it worse for me if I don't comply." She told her in an uncharacteristically small voice.

Benny was muggle-born and although sometimes in Slytherin this was seen as a curse, she would never be forced to marry someone she barely knew. She might never understand it. Jackie was glad she would never have to understand.

"Bullshit!" Benny snapped. "You're giving in too easily. C'mon Jackie you never go down without a fight." She beseeched.

"I really don't see a way out that doesn't involve being disowned." Jackie told her, trying to make her see.

The table fell quiet then until Benny cleared her throat and inched forward to take Jackie's other hand gently. "You don't have to think about it yet. Have fun with us today. Allow yourself to be a teenager for now." She said softly, finding that arguing with a meek Jackie was not nearly as satisfying as arguing with normal Jackie.

"Let's go." Jackie grinned, finishing up her breakfast and heading out the Great Hall doors with her girls in tow. She was determined to forget about the stupid Black house and the horrors they were letting loose on her life.

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It started to snow on their way down to Hogsmeade. There was nothing that could cheer Jackie up better than the first snow of the year. The girls all shivered and pulled their coats tighter around them as dainty snowflakes caught on their hair.

"This right here feels like home, don't you think?" Jackie whispered to Benny as the girl took off her own scarf and wrapped it around Jackie's neck to warm her up.

Benny grinned softly down at the brunette. "Shut it, you big softie." She teased, throwing an arm around her shoulder as they trudged through the rising layer of snow.

Their first stop was to Tomes and Scrolls of course for Jackie. There was nothing she loved more in the world than books. The feel of them, the smell of them, even the way they sounded as you flipped through the pages. Everything she knew, she had learned from a book and as she searched through shelves of new releases, she forgot about all the worries of the past week. The ache in her hands from carrying two full bags of hardbacks as she left the shop was very much worth it.

Then they had to make a stop in Dervish and Banges to get Benny some more broom polish. She was the Keeper for the Slytherin Quidditch team and with another match coming up before Christmas she had to make sure her broom was in pristine condition. Success had always been a little bit harder to come upon when you were a muggleborn so she had become very proud of her place on the team.

Next, Cordelia wanted to stop into Honeydukes to satisfy her sweet tooth. Living at home with Grandmother Singh all year was hell on earth for the girl as any and all confectionary was banned from the house. To make up for her losses in the summer Delia was often found stashing mountains of whatever sweet things she could get her hands on under her bed during school months. And if you asked nicely, she was never short of a few Ice Mice kept in her robe pockets either.

And their last stop was to Gladrags Wizardwear for Elizabeth. The woman was as shrewd as a politician when it came to haggling over the price of rolls of fabric with the owner. And usually, it was all the other girls that got caught to drag her massive rolls of tulle and silk back to the castle for Lizzie to make into something beautiful. But it would be a crime to say no to those little puppy dog eyes that she would use to plead for help.

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They arrived at the Three Broomsticks tired and soaked through with melted snow, but they still had pleased smiles on their faces. They dumped all their purchases beside their table and wearily sat down. Elizabeth ordered the first round of Butterbeers and they all soon warmed up enough to take off their coats.

Jackie had already pulled out one of her new books and started to read, her eyes drinking in the excitement of a brand-new story. Well at least she was until Elizabeth grabbed the book out of her hands and hid it under the table.

"Hey! I was reading that!" she gasped in surprise.

"It is rude to read in the company of others." Lizzie told her with a coy smile.

"I have more!" Jackie warned, gesturing to the bag of books beside her.

"Then I'll just take those too." She smiled smugly, in that mother hen way of hers.

Jackie sat back and crossed her arms childishly, muttering something about "stupid pureblood decorum" under her breath. That only made Elizabeth's smug grin widen.

And then all of a sudden, their peace was broken by the grating voice of Sirius Black. "Darlin' why so glum?" He asked in his usual loud, casually flirtatious voice.

Jackie's frown deepened as he pulled up a chair beside hers and slung an arm around her shoulders. The boy was totally at ease as if he hadn't just tried (and somewhat failed) to kiss her not yet a week ago. His pride really knew no bounds.

And Jackie couldn't help but roll her eyes as she saw his three other ignoramus friends pull over a table and chairs to join them. She knew not to even bother trying to shake off his arm around her shoulders. That boy really did have an iron grip.

"I wasn't glum." She told him simply. "Until now." She then muttered under her breath.

"What did you just whisper?" He asked, with an oblivious smirk.

"Nothing you need to worry about." She said with less of a scowl than usual. She was too tired to argue with him today.

Benny, forever the most extroverted one out of the four struck up a conversation with the other boys at the table. "Quidditch match against us next Saturday Potter, I hope you're not a sore loser." She taunted, as smug as ever.

Jackie tried kicking her under the table to get her to shut up, so they'd hopefully leave out of boredom. All she got for her endeavors was a pained "Ow Jackie! What was that for?" from Benny and a few weird stares from Peter Pettigrew. She was tempted stick out her tongue at him but eventually decided that she would save the immaturities for another time.

"Slytherin won't last a second now that I'm team captain and Sirius is our new beater." James boasted proudly. Sirius looked at Jackie as if he was expecting her to congratulate him on his new spot on the team. Jackie did no such thing.

"I'm no Quidditch expert but weren't you on the team last year too Potter? And yet you still only managed to beat Hufflepuff for third place by ten points? Odd." Jackie pointed out with a smug grin of her own. Benny shot her an appreciative look from across the table.

James laughed at this and looked pointedly at Sirius. "Your birds got a little bit of bite in her after all." He told him in that god-awful 'lad' way that boys spoke in when they were around their friends.

"I think Black's gone just as delusional as you if that's what he's telling people." Jackie dismissed simply, knowing that they were only trying to goad her into anger.

"I didn't tell him anything. I never kiss and tell." Sirius said with mischief very evident in his voice. Jackie could have hexed him right there on the spot.

There was a moment of silence at the table before she heard the gasps of her three friends from around the table. She put her head down on the table in embarrassment as she heard a chorus of: "You kissed Sirius Black? But you hate him!" and "Why didn't you tell us!"

"Oh, Jackie you little minx!" Cordelia squealed. Little kisses were not a shock to the girls when living in a boarding school with a bunch of hormonal teenagers. But it was a shock coming from Jackie who they'd always seen as their innocent little sister with more interest in going to the library than going on dates.

"I didn't kiss him! It was the other way around. And he makes it sound much more monumental than it really was." Was all she was willing to divulge.

"She's just shy, aren't you sweetheart?" Sirius asked her mockingly, enjoying all this attention immensely. "She was all over me really." He lied with the most annoying smile he could muster. Jackie elbowed him in the ribs hard for that.

"I'm think I'm going to have to put a tracking spell on you Jac to keep you away from those Black brothers." Elizabeth teased.

At the word 'brothers' Sirius tensed up a little and Jackie felt his grip tighten on her shoulder in what seemed an almost possessive way. Jackie shook him off at that. Regulus was plenty protective enough for the both of them.

James got a great laugh out of Sirius' intentional slip and Peter was drinking in the story in a depraved sort of way that made Jackie's skin crawl a little bit. That boy really creeped her out for a reason that she could not exactly pinpoint.

Desperate to get out of the current conversation, Jackie wiggled away from Sirius and instead sat down across from Remus. Hopefully she could get a more intellectual conversation from him. "What's that you're reading Remus?" she asked with a soft smile.

When he looked up at her she was immediately struck by the quiet sadness in his eyes. She just put it down to him feeling left out of the teasing rather than the actual content of the conversation.

"Crime and Punishment." He answered, showing the cover of the book to her.

"Oh, I love Dostoevsky!" She exclaimed, always excited to hear other people's opinions on books.

Remus looked up at her and she noticed the dark circles under his eyes. "You like muggle authors?" He asked in a shocked tone.

"Yeah of course, muggle philosophy is so interesting, don't you think?" She asked inquisitively.

"I didn't think purebloods liked that sort of thing. But yes, I suppose muggles are quite interesting." He replied much more openly than before, now that he knew she wasn't going to mock him for his choices in literature.

"Purebloods are far too stuck in their ways. Don't you mind them." She voiced, patting him on the arm in a friendly way. This only made him despair more over his current situation. She would be so much easier to hate if she was a bitch.

Looking at him then in the silence was what made Jackie realize what had been sitting in front of her this entire time.

The constant weariness of his movements. The gaunt way his bones stood out on his face. The beginning of a deep unhealable scar that could be seen peeking out from under his knitted jumper. His efforts to make himself as unnoticeable as possible.

She knew now why he looked so sick.

The full moon was tomorrow.

(this was more of a filler chapter just to bulk out the story and there wasn't too much action going on unfortunately. also i changed the story name to something with a bit more significance because i want to try putting more effort into this, fingers crossed. that's all for now, thanks for reading!!)