Hello, I'm back. I hope you all like this chapter. It does look a bit like a filler, but there are conversations that need to be had between this characters. This is a chapter that will lead us to a lot with the next chapters and will show some of their personalities a bit better in the future. 

HAVE FUN! LEAVE COMMENTS!

TW: (Very Light) Sexual Harassment and Homophobia (first part of the chapter).

Being outed for the whole school by Severus Snape had not been exactly what Marlene McKinnon had imagined announcing that she was a lesbian, especially before her family knew it, but it was how the world turned out to be. His doing was one of the big reasons Lily Evans' friendship with Severus dimmed, being completely extinguished at his use of the 'm-slur' that was so offensive to muggle-borns.

Lily had known about her sexuality since their third year, and she had not cared about. Christian as her family was, Lily was expected to react badly, but Marlene was pleasantly surprised by her acceptance and kind smile, gentle mannerisms Marlene wished her own mother had. She had been one of Marlene's greatest 'defensor' since she was outed, distributing detentions left and right at any slur, badly-timed joke or ugly look, but Marlene had not expected Sirius Black to become her other defensor.

Sirius accepted the jokes, looks and slur with his chin up, often laughing along and even forcing himself to flirt with the bullies as if he didn't care what they thought of him, but Marlene knew better. She saw the ways his shoulders tensed up, how his jaw locked in place before he forced smiles to come, turning to them like a prince would turn to a subject – as if he was far above them and he was doing them a service by listening to them; haughty, superior. But Sirius noticed that Marlene would wince at the slurs, would cry at the jokes and shake at the laughs aimed at her, so he took upon himself to end them.

However, she wasn't attached to the hip to either of them. There were moments when Marlene needed to walk alone to class.

Sirius took Divination. Lily took Ancient Runes.

Marlene walked alone to choir.

But this time she wasn't alone, because a group of Slytherin boys followed her, laughing at a joke that one of them did.

"Come on, McKinnon, just tell us which girls you had. We always love spending good time with girls, especially in plural," one of them said. Dorian Burke, she noticed by the voice, not looking back at them. The boys laughed. "There has to be at least one of them that is willing to try out cock."

She walked faster.

She just needed to get to the end of the corridor and turn to the right, from there she could sprint to the room and –

Sirius stood in front of her.

Confused, she looked at him and glanced behind her, unsure of where he had come from.

"Hey," he said, not looking at her, eyes stuck on the frozen group behind her. "You forgot your inkpot with me. I know you like to write down on your sheet music. Here."

She took it from him, not caring at all about the inkpot.

"Can you walk me to –"

He ignored her.

"Hello, gentlemen. Such a nice afternoon for making my life harder than it needs to be?" he greeted. "What the fuck do you want? Don't you all have to lock yourselves into a tiny classroom nobody's using to talk about how much you hate muggleborns for being better than your lot? – I mean, it's really shitty that you all have such few members in this tiny little club, even worse that no girls were willing to join. Couldn't any of them stand the smell of virgins?"

Marlene looked at the boys that had been behind her, tensing up when she noticed it was four of them. Rabastan Lestrange, Dorian Burke, Corban Yaxley and Amycus Carrow. While they were certainly offensive to the eyes and ears, they were harmless...

...unless provoked.

"Sirius, please," Marlene whispered, trying to deescalate the situation.

Her appeasement was once more ignored when Sirius opened a smile that looked more baring his teeth.

Rabastan's hesitation disappeared.

"Your friend can't take a joke?" he mocked.

"I don't know about my friend, but I'm not in the mood for joking, so fuck off," Sirius answered.

"It's no surprise your family was so happy to see your back, Black. You are low, crude –" started Rabastan.

"Wasn't your friend screaming about his cock as if he knew how to use it?" Sirius mocked right back. "Go back into the dorms and teach your mate what to do with it and then you come outside to find them a stupid enough girl for him to shove it in."

Dorian stepped forward at his manhood being insulted with his wand in shaking hand, but Marlene didn't care about what was happening anymore, she just wanted to run away from the situation. Brave as she was, she knew that two against four was completely unfair.

Sirius didn't reach for his wand as he looked at Dorian's wand with curiosity.

"At least one phallic object is usable for you, I suppose," Sirius mocked.

If Dorian had understood the meaning of the word 'phallic', it would've been surprising. The fact that he was angry at Sirius made it so he would be angry regardless of what Sirius would speak next, so his attack was completely expected.

"STUPEFY!" he screamed.

Sirius stepped to the side and took his wand in hand in a second.

"IMPEDIMENTA! STUPEFY!" Sirius screamed back.

Dorian was shoved back and, once he gained his footing again, pandemonium had already hit the corridor.

Marlene dropped her bag and took her wand in hand, pointing at the slowest of boys in his reaction – Corban. He was still fumbling with his wand when she screamed spell after spell to knock him down. But even with her help, there were still three wizards much more competent aiming at Sirius, suddenly forgetting that she had been the original target of the whole situation. Corban threw a spell back, but as soon as she managed to knock him down to the ground, her wand slipped from her hand and fell to the ground.

When Rabastan walked forward enough to get a good spell on Sirius' side, Marlene was faster, jumping on his back, legs around his waist and hands on his face, blocking his view. Her long nails scratched his skin and – at some point – the inside of his eye, making him scream in pain and stumble blindly with her weight on top of him.

She screamed when he threw himself against the wall, her back hitting it harshly before she could prepare herself.

Sirius turned at the sound of her scream as he duelled both Dorian and Amycus. Corban was still waking up from Marlene's spells, which had made him pass out for a few seconds, and now was struggling to get up from the ground. His distraction was enough for Dorian to hit Sirius' chest with a spell that threw him face first on the ground. Marlene roared, nail deepening on the skin of Rabastan's face in her eagerness to be done with him and help her friend. He threw himself against the wall again, making her scream and gasp for air from the hit on her back.

But Sirius turned on the ground, still half-lying there, but now facing Dorian, who was straddling him and preparing for a punch. Sirius raised his arms, protecting his face and head just in time for the first punch to be defended.

Marlene punched Rabastan as best as she could and slapped where she could reach.

Sirius managed to buck his hips up for forcefully that Dorian was thrown forward, almost lying on top of him. Quickly, Sirius raised his foot around Dorian's leg and threw him to the side, managing to use his other leg to kick Amycus in the bollocks, who was running forward to help his friend.

Corban, now standing, pointed his wand at the unarmed Sirius.

But Remus Lupin was quicker.

From the other side of the corridor, Remus pointed his wand with the precision of a sniper and screamed the spell, letting thick ropes fly and tie Corban, making him fall to the ground again.

Sirius, using the distraction and opportunity, threw himself on top of Dorian and punched him in the nose for good measure before getting up and running to Rabastan. He took the older boy by the shirt, dragging him away from the wall, letting Marlene jump from his back before throwing him to the ground and kicking his face with all his might.

"Marls, you alright?" he asked, running to her. "Can you breathe well?"

His arm was bleeding from Dorian's rings and the upper side of his eyebrow had a deep cut from when he was thrown to the ground.

"I'm fine," she said.

He turned her around, forcefully raising her shirt and looking at her back – it was red, and the stone had left its imprint on her white skin. It would certainly bruise in a few hours, which would hurt a lot more than it did right away, when the blood was still running hot.

"Marlene?" Remus called out, approaching.

"I'm fine," she said.

Remus turned to Sirius, but didn't ask out loud.

"I'm fine," Sirius said, gently.

"You're bleeding," he said.

Sirius nodded, aware of the fact.

"They were harassing Marlene. I think I made it worse," Sirius admitted.

Remus had a bitter thought that he held back from slipping to his tongue, but Sirius knew it even without him saying it out loud.

"You didn't!" Marlene quickly defended him. "You really didn't. They needed someone to stand up for them."

"FUCK YOU!" Rabastan yelled after he spat out the blood, still lying on the ground.

Remus watched the scene before turning to Sirius and Marlene.

"A first-year saw the fight and ran to get help. I came. He might be looking for a professor," he warned. "I can tell them that you went to the Hospital Wing if you want me to, Padfoot."

Sirius' eyes turned to Remus so quickly that his head seemed to take a second more to accompany it. He watched his friend for a moment, trying to see if his ears had played a trick on him or if he had hit his head far more forcefully than he had originally thought.

"Nah," Sirius said, hesitantly. "I'm good to go, Moony."

"Good. 'Cause you just landed yourself detention for a week, Pads," Remus said with a smile. "Even I can't save you from that one."

"Oh, come on, it was self-defence!" Marlene said, baffled.

Remus smirked and leaned forward as if he was about to tell her a very serious secret.

"Don't worry, I'll make sure they get at least four weeks," he said. "If you're lucky, you'll only get a day or two, Marls. But you, Pads, you're in for a treat – McGonagall has been searching for a reason to give you more detentions after she couldn't prove that drawing in the blackboard as yours."

Sirius grimaced.

"It wasn't mine!" he said.

"I know," Remus said, grinning. "It was mine."

"You son of –"

"OH, GOODNESS ME!" McGonagall shrieked as soon as she saw the scene from the end of the corridor.

And just like that, the Marauders were back together, and McGonagall wasn't sure she was completely happy about that. Well, at least until she saw that even bleeding and in pain, Sirius Black was smiling at Remus as if he had put the stars back in the night sky and Remus seemed to gain colour back on his cheeks. And, for a moment, they looked unburned and simply teens that had gotten in a fight.

She gave Marlene two days of detention. Sirius got himself five – and two of them he would help Prefects with the rounds (she hoped Remus would see the opportunity).

Regulus looked around as Luna put her things down in the coffee table in front of her, not caring that he was clearly too distracted to care about homework and studying again for the tests in just a few weeks (there was a whole month still, but Regulus knew that Luna would feel better afters studying a bit more since she had been sick the day before even though the full moon had been almost ten days before).

The Ravenclaw Common Room was certainly very different from the Slytherin Common Room. It was airy, wide and circular. The windows on the walls were arches, half covered in the corners by blue and bronze silks. The ceiling took the shape of a dome and had stars painted on it, though it didn't follow the correct pattern in the sky, made only to look pretty – and then he understood that it was actually the stars in the carpet being reflected onto the domed ceiling. The room was furnished with tables, chairs and divans. In the niche, there was a private library; it was smaller than the main library, of course, and smaller than the Black's Library, but it was considerable regardless.

Noticing that Regulus was distracted by the view of the Quidditch Pitch, Luna smiled to herself.

"When you're training and I'm in here, I'd steal glances at the practice," she admitted. "You're a good flyer."

"We never talk of Quidditch," he said.

"I'm not exactly the biggest fan of the sport when I can't play it," she said. "I wanted to. Daddy's a huge Quidditch fan, Remus' into it as well, but like me he used to be more – neither of us can play."

"Why?"

"Well, it's hard to be part of a group when you're too sick to fly for almost a whole week per month. Remus decided it was for the best to only watch the games and insult the players to make Peter laugh since he's not too good with the broom," Luna said. "And I was forbidden to fly."

"Forbidden?! That's outrageous! How can one be forbidden from someone so natural?" he asked.

"The chances of me ending up falling to my death because I passed out were too great, according to Madame Pomfrey, so I wasn't eve allowed to be on a broom without Madame Hooch nearby in the Flying Lessons," Luna explained. "I'm much better than what I used to be when I was young, but the risk still remains when I'm under pressure to fly and with wind, so I ended up just... following the orders, though I broke many of them."

"There were more rules?"

She nodded, amused by his bafflement.

"Oh, there were many," she said.

"Any I should know about?" he asked, frowning in concern.

She smirked, glancing around at the almost empty Common Room, save from a few young first-year students near the library niche, completely entertained by themselves and not paying attention to the couple near the fireplace, sitting on the carpet near the coffee tables.

"The first rule I was given when I came to Hogwarts was 'no running'," she said. "Physical exercise could end up hurting me, according to my mum. But I was a child and I wanted to play, so of course I ignored it. Slowly I believe I built up some resistance to physical exercise, especially with all the stairs in this bloody castle."

"I'd imagine so," he said, chuckling at her grimace. He put his arm around her shoulders, bringing her body to his side. He couldn't imagine growing up with such fear of death and of his own body's betrayal being shoved down his throat. "Anymore?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "At the very start of my fourth-year, Madame Pomfrey talked to me about how sex was completely out of the question until I did more physical exams. As you guessed already, I ignored it as well by the end of fourth-year, and nothing ever happened."

While the conversation made Regulus' heart skip a beat and his body tense up, both because his girlfriend was talking of sex and the thought that he didn't need to ask or think too hard to know who made her ignore the rule.

"You never felt unwell?" he asked.

That made her hesitate, cheeks blushing.

"I'm not sure how to answer," she admitted.

"With the truth," he said.

She looked at him as if his answer had not been too helpful with her inner-thoughts, but she sucked in her lips and nodded to herself before turning a bit – facing his side-profile with determination.

"Sometimes," she admitted. "But we always found a way around it."

Curious, he looked at her and hesitated. He bit the inside of his cheeks and looked away, thinking of how to word his question.

Luna cleared her throat.

"You can ask, if you want to. Or we can change subjects and go to study," she tried to calm him.

"I want to know. I just, at the same time, not sure that I do want to know," he admitted. "I... if... I don't mean to sound overly-confident or sound like a rake –" he stopped himself, taking a deep breath. "I'm just not sure that... or how?"

She watched him for a second.

She had known that he was a virgin; it wasn't hard to guess with his reactions, his family's raising and the way that he had admitted that he had never kissed anyone before at Christmas, however the image of him stumbling over his words as he talked to her due to his curiosity and eagerness to learn, but still battling such youthful feelings for the painful reminder of his brother's doings and the fear of insulting her in any way at all was the clearest way he could've reminded her of his inexperience.

"Do you want to know how we avoided me feeling badly?" she asked.

Regulus' face was bright red when he nodded.

"We went... slow until I learned how much my body could take, and we took breaks when needed. I mostly would let the other person do the hardest part of the job," she explained. "Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes," he said, blushing even more on the forehead.

At least he wasn't completely clueless, she thought. Regulus was completely capable of understanding the theorical side of intercourse, that much was clear, and he had been well explained of the mechanics of it when he was younger – by whom, she didn't know; it was mystery which she wasn't sure she wanted the answer for, because the mental image of it was enough to make her uncomfortable and completely disgusted. However, he seemed surprised and embarrassed every time that the mechanics were brought to him as a physical act.

"Sex isn't something shameful," she said suddenly. "I thought it was... before. My mum said it was meant to be done between people that loved each other and all that, but she made it sound dirty and wrong when done for fun. It isn't. It's natural. It's instinctive, Regulus. Even animals can do it, and they don't feel ashamed of it – nobody had to explain it to them, and yet it happens. Madame Pomfrey said it wasn't meant to be something scary, immoral and disgusting."

"Your mother doesn't approve of it as well?" he asked.

"Mum says it's something for marriage... but I like to think of her saying as if it was meant for love," she admitted. "I suppose I can understand her a bit better now."

Regulus swallowed.

"Did you love him?" he asked.

Luna hesitated.

"I thought I did," she admitted. "But I think love is much more different than what I imagined at first. I suppose I was just... attracted, curious. I think I just wanted his attention more than anything."

"Why?" he sounded confused.

He couldn't understand why someone would go after Sirius Black for validation.

"Because it made me feel worthy."

"Of what?"

"Of not hating myself. Because if someone that could have anyone at all wanted me, then I had to mean something to him, or to anyone else at all someday. I suppose being desired isn't all that different from being loved when you have felt neither."

They hung on the moment of silence that reigned between for a few moments. He couldn't look away from her while his thousand thoughts were completely unpuzzled; it took them a ridiculously long time for him to manage to put them in place and, finally, form words.

"And..." he tried. He had to clear his throat. "And are you able to do feel the difference between love and desire?"

She watched him, taking in his face in detail.

"I think so. I hope so," she said.

"Hope?" he said.

"If it's real... if what you told me that you feel is real, then I think I do know the difference," she said.

He had to hold back the smile. Regulus was aware that his sudden confession with the word of 'love' not too long before had not been unnoticed, even if she had not talked about it with him yet. This was the start of a very difficult conversation that might be terribly embarrassing, especially for him, who was the one in love, while her silence was a very loud answer to his confession.

"Do you feel loved?" he asked.

"I think this is the closest thing I have felt," she said. "I don't feel desired all the time, I feel heard. I feel... cherished."

"You are. Cherished, I mean, you are cherished," he said with a smile.

With a giddy giggle, Luna took the sides of his face and brought him closer to her, kissing his lips without shame and without a care in the world.

Regulus' eyes widened as he pulled back, glancing at the eleven-year-olds. They weren't staring, but now they seemed to realise that they weren't alone and were glancing every now and then to watch the kiss with curiosity. After all, they all knew Regulus Black as the scary Slytherin boy that got into fights and – surprisingly – dated the nice Ravenclaw girl that would help them with their homework if they asked; the sight of him kissing Luna in front of them in their Common Room like a normal couple was surprising.

"They're watching," he whispered against her lips.

Luna looked over her shoulder.

"Daniel, Bruno, Jamie, Alex, there's a whole library for you to hang about. Why don't you shoo?" she asked, smiling at them.

"Oh, Luna, I'm reading Narnia!" Alex complained.

"Read it outside," she requested.

"But –" started Jamie.

Bruno shook his head at his friend, whispering that it was hardly worth it, but his eyes were on Regulus, looking rather alarmed by the way Regulus' eyes were following them around the room. Daniel took his book in silence, getting up from the chair and walking straight to the door, not waiting for his friends.

The boys walked out soon after.

Luna turned to Regulus.

"They're out. May I kiss you now?" she asked.

Regulus felt like a fool for having pulled away from her.

He was the one to kiss her, and this time he put his hand on her waist and used his tongue, just like Evan and Barty had said she might like. And the way she sighed when his hand tightened around her, squeezing her front to his side. With her uniform, it felt much better than it did when she was in the dress. He wouldn't speak out loud of how he could feel her curves when she was pressed to the side of his body, but his mind screamed it to him.

It was almost half-an-hour later that they pulled apart at Marta and Morris walking in and catching Luna in Regulus' arms. Neither couple made any comments, but Regulus' eyes did twitch at Morris being dragged up to the female dormitory by Marta's hands.

Luna smiled at him.

"As I said, sex doesn't have to be shameful," she said, raising her eyebrows at him.

Wolfstar is back to being friends and the Marauders are back as a group! Let's go! Also, Marlene not knowing how to fight, but being willing to get into a fight regardless makes a lot of sense for her character, I think lol. I'm excited about your reactions to her, actually.

Now, Regulus and Luna's conversation: Regulus is very repressed, clearly, and we all expected that, but so was Luna before. Now Luna is open and understands her body and all that - this came to me because it's 1970s! There was a whole freeing movement of girls understanding their sexuality and opening themselves up to this new wave. So I wanted to show a clash of "generations", sort of, and I was excited about this conversation.