"Biancaaaaaaa," James whined from the ground.

"What?" I snapped.

"Pleaaaase just try!"

"James, for the last time, it won't work! Repairo doesn't work on magical artifacts like wands or broomsticks!" I insisted with certainty and conviction. "Brooms are just like wands in that respect. You saw what happened when Cal broke his wand, didn't you? It couldn't be repaired. I'm sorry you broke your broom, but I can't do anything about it."

James sighed, rolling over in the grass. "But you're powerful enough... I'm sure you'd be able to. Please try it! It's worth a try!"

"No it isn't! Even if I fix it, it's likely to break again at random times-and that could be while you're in the air. You could get hurt," I told him. "If it breaks while you're on it, you'll fall out of the sky."

I then turned to Sirius, who still hadn't said a word about the topic.

"You don't think I should, do you?"

Sirius pursed his lips, but said nothing.

I gasped. "You don't agree with me! You agree with him!"

"Well... I mean, if anyone could fix his broom, it would probably be you... so... I dunno, Muzzles. It might work. Just try it and then I can test it out."

My left eye twitched as I gave him a deathly glare. He raised his eyebrows, it didn't back down. I gritted my teeth, getting an idea. "Fine," I said determinedly. "I'll try to fix it, but I'm testing it out."

"Yes!" James yelled out.

"No!" said Sirius.

"Yes," I said firmly. I was fed up of having James beg me to fix it. I knew that it wouldn't work, so I would just have to prove it to him. I rounded on Sirius. "Why would you rather test it out than me? Because I'm a girl? Because you think girls are weak and fragile and that you can handle it better than I can?!"

"Er... no?" said Sirius.

"Then?" I growled, crossing my arms.

Sirius sighed and clenched his fists. He didn't reply for a moment. Finally, he said, "OK. But I'll catch you if you fall."

"No, you won't," I scoffed. "I'll catch myself."

"Bianca, how do you expect to do that?" he asked me.

"Magic," I replied simply. "Duh." I bit my lip, eyeing James's broken broomstick. I sat on the grass and focused on the spell I was about to cast. Then I cleared my throat and said, "Repairo."

The two halves of the wooden broomstick immediately came together. The broom looked as though it was perfectly fixed, but I was positive that it was only on the outside. Nevertheless, James jumped up from the ground and leapt over to me, wrapping his arms around me tightly.

"Yes!" he said. "Thank you, Bianca, I love you!"

"Speaking too soon, James," I wheezed, pushing him off of me. "It isn't fixed."

"Yes it is."

"No it's not."

"Yes it is."

"Trust me, I'm always right," I told James, rolling my eyes. "It's not repaired, it just looks like it is on the outside. You can't permanently fix the actual magical properties of it. Once it's broken, it cannot be repaired."

However, since I had only repaired it to prove to James that it wouldn't work, I grabbed the Nimbus broomstick and mounted it. Then I brushed my hair behind my ears. Sirius, who was standing beside James looking as though he was getting increasingly nervous, sidestepped him and attempted to protest.

"Bianca, do you really h—"

"Yes," I snapped.

I kicked off from the ground slightly more aggressively than I had planned and immediately soared into the air. The broom worked fine so far, but still I knew better. I flew higher and higher, swerving around violently in the hope that the broom would crack in half. James yelled something at me from the ground. His voice nearly got lost in the wind, but luckily he was screaming loud enough for me to be able to catch what he was saying.

"BIANCA, IT WORKS JUST FINE! STOP TRYING TO PURPOSELY BREAK IT!"

I didn't reply. The real reason I really was hoping that it would break while I was in the air was because I was positive that it wasn't repaired for good. One way or another, it was bound to break again sometime. I would rather it break while I was on it than while James was on it.

I watched Sirius on the ground as he positioned himself directly below where I was flying and held his arms out, as though he expected to be able to catch me. My lips quirked upwards slightly.

There was a cracking sound that I was barely able to hear through the whistling of the wind in my ears. Before the broom had broken clean in two once more, I was sent hurtling towards the ground. I watched Sirius panic and scramble around to ensure that he would be able to catch me, but he didn't need to. "Arresto Momentum!" I screamed when I was only a few feet from the ground. Immediately, I slowed down and floated to the ground.

"Phew," Sirius said, retracting his arms. "It's a good thing I caught you!" he states sarcastically.

"Idiot," I said, pushing his arms away. "See, James?" I added, whirling around to face the bespectacled boy, fully prepared to tell him that he had been wrong. However, upon seeing his face fall, I stopped. His eyes were fixated on his Nimbus, which was once again in two pieces. I shook my head to myself and walked over to him, standing on my toes to place my hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry... I tried, you know I did. But I knew it couldn't be mended... That was why I wanted to test it out myself."

James sighed, putting his head in his hands. "This has been the worst day of my entire life."

Sirius came over to his side and attempted to give him a side hug, but James pushed him off.

"Can you guys just give me a moment alone?"

I nodded and prodded Sirius in the back with my finger. "Let's go, there's something I needed to tell you anyway."

He nodded wordlessly, his hair tickling the sides of his face. We walked silently for just a moment, heading towards where the rest of the Quidditch team was still pretending to practice. Once we were far enough from James so that he was no longer able to hear us, I stopped walking alongside Sirius and he did the same. I was still seething with anger at Snape, but I had been attempting to cover it up for James's sake.

The sun was already setting over the horizon, painting the blue sky with pink, orange and yellow colours. There were a few clouds coming in and there was still a light breeze in the air. Along with the sunset came cooler air; I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself.

"What the hell is happening?" Sirius asked. "First, he was banned from playing in the upcoming Quidditch game for something that wasn't even his fault. Then, he accidentally punched out Lily Evans, and then he broke his broomstick! Why must everything bad be happening to Prongs today? What is it with today?"

"I know why," I said. "I was confused too, at first, but then it completely made sense." I went silent, staring at James's figure from far away.

"Well?" he said expectantly.

My gaze returned to him. I watched his wide grey eyes and knitted eyebrows. "I'm going to tell you, but you have to promise me something."

"What would that be?"

"That you won't get angry—no, actually that's probably impossible. No, just promise me that you will cover your anger up as best you can. Please don't do anything, because you must know that I've already handled it and there's nothing more you can possibly do. Also, whatever you do, you can't tell James... or Remus and Peter."

"What? But-"

"Sirius," I tutted. "Promise or I won't tell you."

"But I can't make promises if I don't even-"

I narrowed my eyes at him.

"How can I not tell Prongs? I tell him everyth—"

I glared at him.

"Fine," he huffed, looking at me straight in the eyes. "Fine, I promise I guess."

I bit my lip thoughtfully. "I don't believe you. Let's make an Unbreakable Vow."

"Bianca!" Sirius whined, cracking a smile.

"All right, all right, I was just kidding!" I replied, grinning. I sighed. "Fine, I'll tell you. So, er... remember how I talked to Snape before?"

He stayed silent and the smile was immediately wiped from his face and replaced with a look of suspicion. Without waiting for him to reply, I continued.

"I saw him watching happily when James accidentally hit Lily. I wondered how he had just happened to be there at that exact moment... What luck! Then it hit me." I looked around to make sure that we were alone before saying it out loud. "He used his Felix Felicis this morning."

Sirius's eyes darkened and he clenched his fists at his sides. He seemed angry, and rightfully so. I was angry too, but I ignored him so as not to add fuel to the fire.

"Everything bad that had been happening to James all day was a result of bad luck brought on by a potion. It was because Snape's idea of good luck was bad luck for James, his worst enemy. But it all makes sense: the reason Snape initiated the duel with James in the first place. He was so confident that he would win because of his luck, and in the end, he didn't even get in trouble for it—only James did!"

His lips parted as realization flashed across his eyes. He turned away from me and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"You all right there?" I asked him, raising my eyebrows. "Not thinking of doing anything stupid, are you?"

He didn't answer.

"You promised me—Sirius, I swear to Merlin, don't—"

"I'm not going to do anything," he said. "Hopefully that's the end of his luck, though. I think James will break if another bad thing happens." He shuffled his feet, kicking at the ground. His eyes were fixated on his shoes. "It just goes to show," he added, "that he didn't really care about Evans much, did he? I mean, he was happy that she got hurt, even if it was by James. His hatred for Prongs is more than how much he cared for his best friend."

I pursed my lips. "I dunno," I responded. "Well, it's about time to tell them they can leave, don't you think?" I pointed at the rest of the team as they continued to fool around. By then, they were all attempting to knock each other off of their brooms.

"I guess," said Sirius, though he was obviously still thinking about Snape.

***

True to his word, Sirius hadn't mentioned anything about Snape to James, nor had he uttered a single word about the topic to Remus and Peter. After he and I had put an end to Quidditch practice, we had used the Marauder's Map to track down the other two boys while talking James out of visiting Lily at the Hospital Wing. Then we had headed back to Gryffindor Tower to hang out-or in James's case, to sulk.

At first, I didn't understand why he was so upset over his broomstick as his parents had enough money to buy him a new one; but then I remembered that they had already saved up to buy Sirius a Nimbus 1500 for his birthday. James was probably jealous about that.

Back in the common room, it quickly became too noisy, so the Marauders and I instead went up to the boys' dormitory. James quickly collapsed on his bed, claiming that hopefully if he was asleep, no other bad things could happen to him. Remus pulled out a book to read and Peter pulled out a bag of lemon drops and began eating them.

Sirius sat on his own bed, took the Marauder's Map out of his pocket and laid it across his lap. Then he took his wand out, said the incantation and watched as the mapped-out castle appeared on the previously blank parchment. I furrowed my eyebrows at what he was doing and went to sit on his bed next to him. He made room for me and opened one of the flaps on the Map as though he was looking for someone specific. I noticed the crinkles in his forehead and the angry look in his eyes, which led me to realize just what he was doing.

I looked over at Remus and Peter; neither was paying attention, so I whispered to Sirius, "I know what you're doing. Stop looking for Snape."

"I'm not looking for Snape," he whispered back-but the smirk gave him away.

"Liar," I breathed. "Keep your promise to me, Sirius. I told you I handled him. I even threatened him and everything. I'm scary enough, all right? Trust me, he definitely got the message."

He said nothing for the longest time until finally, he nodded. "OK. But I'm bored, so I'm just going to watch him. As soon as I find him, that is..."

Our eyes scanned the Marauder's Map, looking for the moving dot that was labelled with Severus Snape's name. Amidst our search, I found Regulus. He was in the Slytherin common room, surrounded by a few other names of Slytherins I recognized. That led me to abandon my search for Snape and instead think of him.

I missed him. We hadn't gotten many chances to meet in secret during the past few weeks and other than that, the only ways we could interact were through our owls. However, we couldn't always owl each other in case someone noticed. I wanted to tell everyone about our relationship soon, but every time I even thought about doing it, I felt sick to my stomach. I was so terrified of the reactions that everyone would have to us-especially the Marauders and the Black family.

I really wished there was some way we could interact secretly, without even having to be in the same place so that we wouldn't be seen together on the Marauder's Map.

I gasped so suddenly that Sirius jolted and then asked me, "What? You see him?"

Placing my hand over my mouth, I ignored him. "Holy crap. I've just had an epiphany. Excuse me."

With that, I jumped up from his bed and ran out of the boys' dormitory, all the way to the girls'. Sirius, Remus and Peter all stared after me curiously, but I often ran straight out of the boys' dormitory after getting a great idea, so they weren't too bothered.

Once there, I excitedly bounced my way towards my nightstand and opened the drawer. I rummaged through it until I had found two perfect bits of parchment that were just the right size. I set them down on my bed before grabbing my wand from my pocket.

It would be difficult, I knew that—but just the previous year, the Marauders had achieved making something as complex as the Marauder's Map. If they had been able to create the Map with nothing but a piece of parchment and some ink, surely I would be able to do this.