I'll Follow You Anywhere

"I kissed Lora," I replied, my voice shaking unsteadily like a frail tree trying to hold itself together as the gail blew past it. His face immediatly lit up and a big grin overshadowed the worry he had just seconds before. He clapped my back joyfully and tossed his book nonchalantly on the ground, done with his studying already after hearing my fickle news.

"That's great mate! You told her right? How you felt?" he asked excitedly, his eyes lighting up like a starving dog that had just been given a large pile of bones to snack on.

"No," I whispered, trying not to let myself fall into this slump again.

"Why not?" James asked, his happiness now erased. I could picture the annoyance of my actions building up inside of him.

"You should have seen the look on her face, James. She looked disgusted," I answered, my emotions beginning to favor anger. I spat out the word disgusting as if it was something vile itself. And in a way, it was.

"Well I saw Lora before I came out here to find you. She was acting perfectly normal, all smiles and what not. She seems to have gotten over the divorce. And I doubt she was disgusted, Sirius. Probably just surprised, that’s all." I let James' words sink into my skin and made myself believe them.

While we started our studying by the rippling lake's edge, I thought about what James had said. I couldn't decide whether or not to believe him. If I listened to him and told Lora that I love her, then what if she didn't like me back? Then maybe she wouldn't want to be my friend. The fear that had gripped my heart with it's cold hands all year washed over me again. I made myself believe James though. After all, he is the one who is dating the girl of his dreams. Maybe he would know something about this.

So I let myself believe James.

-28-

"Do we have to go?" I groaned as I tied my shoes in the common room. It was the morning of our last examination and none of us were looking forward to this particular one: Transfiguration. All night we had practiced transforming Jack into different things but finally he went crazy and started barking at all of us. Anyone who spoke got a sharp bite from his fury and he finally just scampered away to the boy's dormitory (where I later found him sleeping on my pillow. There were some weird spots on it when Jack got off so I switched my pillow with James' when he went to go brush his teeth.)

"Yeah, let's just all stay here and skip the exam," Lora offered as she toyed with Jack's ears, much to his annoyance. Things weren't weird between Lor and me anymore. After I had made my way back to the castle with James, I had pulled Lora aside and told her that I didn't want things to be weird between us over a little kiss. She had agreed and then things became normal again. I figured that I should try to hang out with her as much as possible with the little time I had left, so I definitely didn't want things to get all awkward.

Tomorrow was the day though. The day where I would finally have to take a chance and just tell Lora how I felt. Sure, I was dreading it more than anything I've ever felt in my life but I decided last night that I was going to be a man about it. If Lora didn't like me then it wasn't the end of the world. I could find a new girl maybe. While I was still unsure about this fact that I had used to comfort myself, I was stable about telling Lora. I mean, maybe she would still want to be friends with me after I rejected her, right?

"No! We studied forever last night and we all know the stuff. Now all we can do is go out there and give it our best," Lily pepped to us, putting on a convincing smile. I groaned as she pulled me up off the couch and over to the entrance way. We all followed her out of the common room and made our way down to the Great Hall for breakfast. Much to our disappointment though, no one was allowed inside. Apparently it had closed early this morning and you had to be someone that never sleeps to even get down there for breakfast. So no breakfast for any of us. We slumped down against the wall and waited for fifteen minutes to go by so then we could take our exams.

"You think we'll all be in the same room?" Lora asked, turning to us for an answer.

"We weren't any other time," James replied as he stared up at the ceiling. I could practically see the wheels in his mind cranking to try and remember all of the spells that we had been taught in Transfiguration.

"Oh yeah," she muttered to herself, whispering things that McGonagall had told us in class. I sighed and leaned my head back against the wall, trying to remember everything that I had learned in that class since my first year. Of course, my mind quickly strayed from that (not like it matters. I feel plenty prepared for it.)

Today was the last full day that I would ever be a student at Hogwarts. What a depressing thought that is. I mean, I love Hogwarts. I can't even fathom what it will be like not to wake up in the dormitory any more; not to have someone clean my clothes and make me breakfast. Pretty soon I'll have to be doing all of that myself. Surprisingly enough, I'll even miss the classes. Sure, they were a huge pain when I had to study and do homework and what not but now that I don't have any more classes, I'm really going to miss them. I'm going to miss hearing Lora flirt with Slughorn or hearing McGonagall yell at us for passing notes and talking in class. This year went by so fast, I never want it to end.

I remember it seemed like just yesterday Lora was waking me up for the first day of school. So much has changed since then. I mean, we've all grown to be more mature (though can still act like children if the time is appropriate). I feel like that was a whole lifetime ago.

"Sirius Black?" a small voice said, awakening me from my memory filled trance. I looked up and saw a small boy with bright red hair. He was short, slim, pale and his hands were shaking. I could just tell that he was a first year.

"Yes?" I replied, already knowing what it was.

"They want you in the Great Hall to take your exam. Professor McGonagall sent me," he answered, his voice shaking as he spoke to me.

"Bloody 'ell, I'm right. They can't come and get me myself?" I muttered as I stood up and nodded to my friends.

"Erm, Mr.Black?" the boy asked again. I chuckled at this and asked him what he wanted to say.

"Do you know where a Lora Clense would be?" he asked, his face blushing as he asked me. He looked down at his shuffling feet when he was done.

"Right here. They want me too?" she asked as she stood to her feet. The first year nodded and walked away.

"Well, let's go rock this," I said as we waved goodbye to our friends and made our way into the Great Hall.

The whole room was split up into little tents. Occasionally a student would emerge from one of the booths, a terror filled look masking their face. Sometimes you would see someone that looked a little confident but most of them just looked worried as they emerged into the fresh air and began to exit. One kid told Lora and me "good luck" as he walked past us. I heard him mutter under his breath, "You're gonna need it."

"Black, Sirius!" a prefect called out a few feet away from me. I whispered a quick good luck to Lora and made my way over to the prefect. He simply pointed in the direction of one of the many tents. I saw which one he was pointing to though and made my way over to it, gripping my wand tightly in my hand. In my mind I was trying to remember every little thing that McGonagall had ever told me and I silently chastised myself for not taking the time in the hallway and in the common room to study more. I pushed open the curtain dividing the testing area and me and let myself emerge into the room. I'm almost positive that I had a most nervous expression plastered upon my face.

"Sirius Black?" a small man asked in a monotone voice. He was looking down at a sheet of paper and didn't even look up at me as I nodded.

"Turn this into a green duckling," he said briskly, still not looking at me. I saw him motioning though to a quill on the table. I racked my brain for a second as to how to do this and then muttered the spells under my breath. Much to my delight, a small green duckling appeared on the table and began quacking at me. Granted its color was more of a blue-green but still, it was green. My heart skipped a beat nervously as the test conductor looked at the duckling and muttered something to a stout blonde woman next to him. She shook her head to answer his silent question and that made me nervous. After a few more times of completing his demands, I was allowed to go.

As I exited the tent in a rush, I glanced around the room for Lora. I didn't see her any where so I went ahead and exited the Great Hall. I rejoined Lily, James, Remus and Peter, who were all still seated in the hallway, and told them about how my exam went.

"Sounds like it went very well, Sirius," Lily said with a smile as James clapped my back. I nodded and glanced toward the large, wooden door for what seemed like the hundredth time. To my sheer joy, I saw Lora coming towards us.

"How'd it go?" I asked as she settled in next to me.

"Over all pretty well. I think I missed one though because I don't know how to turn a bloody shoe lace into a mongoose," she said, wrinkling up her nose at this last bit. We all laughed at this and continued to carry on talking in the hallway.

The day went by really fast. We all decided that we did really well on our exams except for Lily; apparently she freaked out on one of the questions and turned a spoon into a giant, rainbow colored trout instead of a mouse. But we were all still convinced that we did good. Before I knew it, I was lying down to go to sleep.

The last thought I had in my mind was that tomorrow was the day where I told Lora how I felt, and for the first time in months, I wasn't nervous about it.