Alright, this chapter brings a bit more of the whole Lupin situation, but only hints. I want ya'll to try to guess (it's pretty obvious for those who have been through it/watched people going through it).

I'm really sad today and already cried several times because I'm that dramatic lol. My auditions went terrible. I don't think I got a good part in this musical (if I got a part at all).

LEAVE COMMENTS, PLEASE.

"...enough of this?" Hope was saying on the phone, loudly enough to be heard by the stairs, but not loud enough to wake her children up. "I'm exhausted, Lyall."

Luna carefully went down a few steps and sat on the top, knees against her chest as she focused in listening into the conversation as silently as she could manage. The kitchen light was on, its door was open, letting the yellowish light pour into the sitting room near the stairs – Luna couldn't see into it, and her mother couldn't see her feet.

"You're asking too much of me now, Lyall, really, listen to yourself," Hope moaned at the phone, there was a low thud of her mug crashing onto the kitchen wooden table. "I can't! That's a lot of money – money that I don't have!"

There was a long pause.

"I understand. Of course, I understand. I know you'll pay me back, but when? I don't – no. No! I don't have it." Hope said. "Can't your mother give you some money? You just sold your house; how could you have spent it all at once? Your mother's so much better already, her chemo stopped. Of course I know, I'm the one that talks to her doctors, not you, you awful man!"

Cringing, Luna hugged her knees. She knew her grandmother's cancer had finally been healed and that her muggle doctors were impressed by her swift recovery, unaware that magic and potions were playing such a huge part in her life. But her grandmother was using government resources, none of her treatment had been particularly expensive – that made Luna frown in silence.

"I understand it's health and I can find you a government clinic that will – Oh, please, Lyall! Be reasonable. We've been through this before. I'm no fool. I'm not longer the 19-year-old that you married!" Hope's voice grew in volume before she took a deep breath in, being interrupted on the phone.

A hand on Luna's shoulder made her jump and gasp.

Remus stood behind her, staring at her through is sleep-blurry eyes and a face that told her that she would get scolded.

"What are you doing?" he whispered.

"Mum and Daddy are fighting again," she answered in another whisper.

Remus rolled his eyes.

"They are always fighting, Luna," he dismissed. "Come on, let's get you to bed –"

"I'm not a child."

"But you still have a bedtime," he answered, a smirk appearing on his sleep. She pushed him lightly. "Come on. Really, it's nothing."

"I don't have the money! I won't give you money for you to waste, because when you get out–" Hope said so loudly that even the neighbours might had heard. She stopped herself, clearly being interrupted again.

Remus cringed, eyes fluttering shut for a moment.

"Go to the bedroom. I'll make them stop, alright? We need to sleep," Remus said. "We need to be up early tomorrow to go to London."

"What are they fighting about?" Luna asked.

"Dad's asking for money again," Remus grumbled.

"He probably needs it for grandma's treatment."

"Don't be a fool, Luna," Remus said forcefully. "We both know it's not for Nain."

Luna was completely confused by his eyebrows low and pulled together in his face. That was a face of anger, not a face of annoyance. Remus wasn't sleep-deprived and annoyed that she wasn't ready to go to bed; Remus was angry because she didn't know something, which was new.

"What do you –" she started.

Remus turned on his heels and quickly walked down the stairs, making more noise than he would've done normally. She wasn't sure if he was doing so in the intention of warning his arrival to their mother or if his anger was so big that he couldn't control his own force.

Left alone in the badly lit corridor, Luna walked to the bathroom, turning on the lights to use it. It was the room with the thicker walls, so while inside, staring at herself through the very small mirror as she washed her hands, she couldn't hear anything coming from the outside unless someone was screaming.

By the time she walked out of it the house was in complete silence save by the low buzzing of whispers carrying through the house. Remus was still downstairs, talking to their mother about whatever it was that Lyall and her had been discussing on the phone a few minutes prior, and while the buzzing was constant, it wasn't as loud as Hope had been on the phone.

Luna walked back to the bedroom she shared with Remus.

It was the biggest one in the house and it might have been the master's bedroom in another family, but Hope had decided it was for the best if Remus and Luna were together while she – who worked horribly unfair hours as a nurse – would get a bedroom by herself, where she wouldn't have to worry about waking them up by coming and going. There were two windows behind the two beds put on the walls across from one another, perpendicular.

Remus' side of the room was mostly white and impersonal besides the two posters he had taped to the wall, David Bowie and Queen – which Luna had to admit were great, both to look at and to listen to – and in general his side of the big, brown wood closet was quite organised.

However, Luna's side of the bedroom had been decorated by her in the one day that her mother had gotten a double shift (which she avoided doing for almost a whole year after that fiasco) since Remus was out with his James and Peter (Sirius was still with the Blacks, therefore he wasn't allowed out to 'play' during the summer), she had painted the wall against her bed orange, accidently dropping paint on the floor under the bed – which she had pushed to the side, scratching the wood – and had gotten so close to the window that the wooden windowsill had a few accidental strokes of orange in the corners. She had then taped a Carli Simon poster and (much to Remus' dismay when he came home and saw it) an Elton John poster. Her closet was messy most of the time and she, most often than not, took part of Remus' side of closet as well.

She sighed, falling on the bed over her covers, feet still on the ground as she lied silently, trying to guess what was happening.

What Sirius said had seemed meaningless at the time. The money her father lost, he said. And now, Hope and Lyall were discussing money, her father had sold his home to live with his mother again and there was already no money left. Something was happening and she had no idea what.

Remus soon walked into the bedroom, sighing when he realised Luna's position. He walked closer.

"Go to bed, Luna. It's late and it's cold, under the covers, please," he said.

"You're not Daddy, Remus, you can't order me around," she grumbled. "But you can tell me what's happening."

Remus pressed his lips together.

"It's not my place," he said as if the idea didn't please him either. "Believe me, I want to."

"Then do it."

"I can't."

She huffed, rolling her eyes and sitting up to glare at him.

"Don't look at me like that," Remus said, glaring right back at her. "You're not the most communicative person either."

"What I didn't tell you was to protect you," she said.

"How can you say that what I'm doing isn't the same?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. He turned his back on her, closing the door of the bedroom and not letting the corridor light pour in anymore. "Now, go on. Lie down. Sleep."

"Remus –"

"Please, Luna. I'm exhausted. I want to go to sleep, and I won't if I know you're glaring at me in the dark," he complained, blindly going to his bed and lying down on it.

Luna turned her head as he lied in bed, unable to see him, but following the noises. Stubbornly, she reached over and turned on her table lamp.

Remus was lying facing the wall, his back to her, but he still groaned in the moment the little click came and the yellow light bathed the room.

"Luna –" he said in warning.

"Well, I'm not sleepy," she said, raising her chin.

"Don't be petty. I can't tell you," he said without turning to her.

"You don't need to tell me anything. Go to sleep, I'll read," she said.

He turned to look over his shoulder.

"I can't sleep with light," he said.

"Well now, that's not my problem, is it?" she said, shrugging.

Remus sat up on the bed at once.

"Don't be ridiculous, Luna! We have a long trip in just a few hours and I'm very tired, please, turn off the light and go to sleep!" Remus insisted, glaring at her something fierce. "Whatever it was downstairs, I can't tell you. All I can say is that Dad's in a bad situation and he asked for money, we don't have any, so he's angry," he sighed loudly. "He always gets angry when he's in the worst."

"Is he alright?" she asked, worried.

"I don't know. But I know he will be. He always gets better," Remus said. He shrugged, leaning against the headboard of his bed and crossing his arms against his chest. "Don't worry, Dad's quite grown up and he can take care of himself, besides he's living with Nain now. She can always help him."

"With what?"

Remus went silent again.

Annoyed, Luna turned off the lamp with a huff and lied on her side, back to her brother. He called her name, his tone apologetic, but she didn't turn to him, nor did she turn on the light. All she did was close her eyes and fall asleep after a few minutes of stillness.

Sirius shifted uncomfortably, watching Marlene trying her best to balance her mirror on the doorknob of the train compartment so se could finish her make-up now that Lily was no longer in there with them (she had gone for a Prefect meeting and would appear again sooner or later).

"Marlene, it'll fall and break," he warned her, frowning at the image.

"Words have power, so shut it, Black," she said well-humoured though er tone was snappy.

"Merlin's saggy balls, Marlene, really, your make-up is fine, I swear!" Sirius said as she struggled, getting on her knees to get in the height of the mirror, finishing applying more of the pink eyeshadow. "More of that pink eyeshadow and you'll become a flamingo."

"I said 'stuff it', Black!" she grumbled, very focused on blending the darker pink with the lighter tone.

"No, you said 'shut it' last time, so..."

"I'll find something to stuff your mouth with," she threatened.

"Marlene, dearest, I'm queer. I like that idea," Sirius teased.

The joke made Marlene look away from the mirror, finding Sirius leaning back on the seats with a smirk in his lips. She made such a loud and awful noise that he jumped until he realised it was the sincerest laugh he had ever heard out of her. With that, he smiled to himself, watching her just stare at him wide eyed, mouth open and gasping of air midst laughs.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Sirius, you can't just –" she had to stop to continue laughing, putting the eyeshadow palette on the ground, now suddenly on her hands and knees on the carpeted floor of the train.

Sirius raised his eyebrows. The joke had not even been that good.

"Well, it isn't a lie!" he defended himself.

"I'm well aware, mate, but you still caught off guard," Marlene admitted, finally recuperating some control. She pushed herself to her knees again, hands on her lap. "You don't usually joke around with that."

He shrugged.

"I don't have anything else to lose anymore," he said.

Marlene narrowed her eyes, taking in the words with great care before thinking of something to say as answer.

"Is that why the rest of your group isn't talking to you anymore?" she asked, suddenly serious.

Marlene usually didn't take things to a serious side. She would either laugh things off or get so angry that Sirius was sometimes reminded of Regulus, ready to jump into a fight, though – due to her... challenged size – she usually would stick herself to screamed arguments in public places, but in case of a physical fight, she rarely lacked, fighting with all her strength until somebody parted the fight.

"No. They're not like that. I just cocked everything up myself," Sirius admitted.

Marlene turned completely to him, legs carelessly to the sides, just one knee folded – if Sirius looked down, he would see more than he bargained for, but he didn't look anywhere other than her face – as she shook her head slightly.

"What did you do?" she whispered the question.

Clearly, she wasn't expecting answers, but Sirius gave it to her anyway.

"I betrayed them," he admitted. "In the worst way possible."

"Did you intend it?"

"Not in the way they thought. I intended to hurt someone, but never them," he explained. "But I did anyway. And it's, certainly, a punishment that I deserve, so I don't intend to beg my way back into their graces until they are able to look at me without Remus' lips curling like a rabid dog's, baring his teeth against a threat."

"For all I know, you're the dog, not Remus," Marlene teased.

Sirius' eyes narrowed at her.

"What do you mean?" he asked, suspicious.

"Only a dog can go around fucking every bitch they can see," she teased, laughing. Sirius didn't smile. "Is this part of the problem? Someone you slept with?"

"Some of it," he admitted.

Marlene turned to her mirror again, taking her mascara.

"Is this... about Luna?" she asked.

Sirius felt his whole body go cold, stomach dropping to his feet in a moment. His face was pale, his eyes wide and his eyebrows almost touching one another in concern and worry. If Marlene knew... who else did?"

"Don't worry, I won't tell anybody," Marlene said, rolling her eyes.

"How do you know?" Sirius asked.

"Well, she's a great kisser, but a lightweight to alcohol. I don't think she remembers the party we kissed at very well, but she does happen to ramble a lot," Marlene explained, sort of mumbling as her mouth was agape as she focused on darkening her eyelashes. "She was slurring so much that I barely understood her. That was when I realised how drunk she was, and I called for her blonde friend – what's her name?"

"Pandora?"

"Yes! Yes. Pandora Rosier," Marlene answered. "Regardless, she was slurring a lot and I barely understood her, but she did call for you. She asked me not to tell you that we kissed, and I was confused to why you would care until the next day. She got sick. I suppose it was because of the alcohol."

"Her body doesn't take alcohol well," Sirius said, nodding along with her guess.

Marlene glanced at him through her small mirror, she said nothing.

"Anyway, she was in a bad state and you were watching her the whole morning after she almost threw up, and you looked terrified," Marlene explained. "You were pale, you were shaking. Absolutes a boy that thought the girl they were fucking was pregnant – because, of course boys think that a girl with nausea is pregnancy and not alcohol fucking poisoning."

Sirius remembered that day. It was at the very end of the school year before, a few weeks after they fist slept together. By the time he managed to talk to her, and she had said that she was hungover, he had grown into a pile of nerves that made everybody notice there was something wrong with him.

"Remus found out," he explained.

"Is that the fight?"

"There's more. Remus wouldn't allow something like that break our friendship; if I was interested in his sister, he would look away even if he didn't like it. However, it was... casual, you see. And I cocked up. I broke up what I had with her when he started sharing some signal that he was interested and then I went and kissed him. The next day, betrayed everybody."

"You're not telling me what?" she asked.

"No," he said, smiling sadly at her and shaking his head.

"It must have been really bad, then," Marlene said, wincing.

"It was."

Done with her make-up, Marlen took the mirror from the doorknob and got up from the ground, sitting on the seats across from Sirius, turning to the side and putting her feet on the seats as well, turning her head to the side to look at him.

"I'm sure that they'll forgive you soon enough. You boys cannot survive without one another," she teased with a smirk.

"They seem to be doing fine," he said slightly bitter. "But they did talk to me over New Years' when they came to the Potters' home. They were cordial."

"It's a start..." she mused.

"It's not enough, though."

"No, but it's a start," Marlene sighed. "Listen, the blokes are miserable without you, everybody's seen it. Peter looks like a saggy wet cat; James is dragging his feet to do anything at all – I never thought that I'd ever see James Potter not prancing around. Clearly, whatever you did, was not enough to not let them miss you."

Sirius' eyes burned as he looked at Marlene.

She looked absolutely calm, as if her words had not just set his heart on fire and warmed his soul. She smiled at him – her smile always looked slightly malicious, as if she knew a secret that nobody else did – and she looked genuinely happy for the way his eyes watered.

"What? Are you going to cry again?" she mocked playfully.

He swallowed harshly.

"Careful, I might," he teased right back.

SURPRISE! Marlene's first actual apperance! Let's go LESBIANS. It's a good day to like women and imagine Marlene as Renee Rapp.

Now, what are your guesses on the Lupin's situation?