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"Slow down!" Lily was having to jog in order to keep up with Sirius who was taking large strides as he walked along the Hogwarts corridors.
Lily was trying to ignore the fact that they were pretty much the only people inside on that rare sunny day. She wanted to be outside as well, but Sirius had been acting strange that morning and so she had decided that she needed to stay with him. She had attempted to get him to talk, but that hadn't proved easy either. He had pretty much ignored any of her attempts to start a conversation by fobbing her off with a grunt and several shrugs.
She wasn't happy about the way that he was treating her, but she was stubborn and even if that wasn't a particularly positive trait, it was one that had gotten her through a lot when it came to Sirius and his friends.
"Where are we going?" She asked for what had to be the seventeenth time since they had left the Gryffindor tower. She knew that Sirius liked to instill a sense of drama into every aspect of his life, but this was getting ridiculous now. All she wanted to do was get to wherever they were going and for him to tell her what was going on.
"We're not going anywhere. I'm going somewhere where you're not." He said as he finally stopped, but Lily was going far too fast and couldn't stop in time. She slammed into Sirius' back, getting a face full of leather in the process.
"Sirius." She frowned, taking over her features as she took a step back. She realised then that she was perhaps coming across as annoying and clingy and the small voice in the back of her head was telling her that she should leave him be, as difficult an option as that was for her to consider at that moment.
"Can you please just back off?"
The words cut through her like a knife and despite herself she let out a stifled whimper. She didn't mean to annoy him, her aim had been to look out for him when his best friends hadn't even noticed that there was anything wrong. She took another step back before nodding to herself - aware that he couldn't see her because he hadn't even bothered to face her. She left him there in the corridor, wrapping her arms around herself as she walked away from him, just about managing to hold her tears in until she was outside.
The fresh air hit her like a ton of bricks, knocking the wind out of her in one fell swoop and taking with it her ability to keep herself from crying. She didn't care how pathetic she looked as she dropped down onto a stone bench in the courtyard, her tears falling freely now. She had had enough of being the nice one, so far it hadn't helped her much in life.
"Lils?" A familiar voice was potentially the only thing that was going to be able to pull her out of the downwards spiral that she had managed to work herself into. Sirius' attitude towards her had been the straw that broke the camel's back. Severus had been far more cruel than him but she hadn't let him see her cry - but also when he had thrown that terrible slur at her she had back up in the form of James. With Sirius she had been alone.
She looked up to meet a pair of blue eyes looking down at her from under a mass of blonde hair. For some reason the kindness on Marlene's features just made her feel even worse, probably because it was such a contrast with the way that she had been treated by the boy that she had a crush on. She hated that she still felt this way about Sirius when it was clear that he couldn't even bear to be around her when it was just the two of them but she supposed that in a way she was lucky because it gave her a whole new perspective on how James felt about her and part of her was now realising that she should probably be nicer to him.
"What's wrong, sweetpea?" Her lilting voice made Lily stop crying long enough to clear her eyes of tears. She didn't know how to explain how she was feeling to Marlene, however, without sounding like a complete weirdo.
"I.. I guess I'm just feeling crappy." She said quietly, deciding not to even mention Sirius to Marlene, she was fully aware that her feelings for the boy were a sore spot for her friend after Marlene had been unceremoniously rejected at the end of last year, and she didn't think that it would be appreciated at all if she rubbed salt in the wound especially when Marlene was trying to help her.
Marlene was sat on the bench beside her and her arms were wrapped around her in the next second. Lily knew that she was lucky to have good friends who didn't seem to care what her issues were, all they wanted was to make her feel better when she was feeling down.
Lily let Marlene hold her for a while, appreciating the fact that the blonde didn't ask any further questions, that she didn't push her to talk about things that she was far from ready to even think about that day. She was all too aware that she needed to get a handle on her feelings before they started to pull her under a blanket that she didn't think she would be able to escape from. When she felt that she could finally speak without breaking down completely, she took a breath and pulled away from her friend.
"Thank you." She said quietly as she wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. She didn't know what exactly it was that she was thanking Marlene for, but she knew that she had to get those words out, even if only to make herself feel somewhat better.
Marlene pressed a kiss to the top of her head before she got to her feet and held out her hand to help Lily up. "That's what friends are for." She said softly, "Now, come with me and we'll get that smile back on your face where it belongs."
Lily couldn't help but let out a chuckle at that one. She knew that it was completely out of character for her to be upset about anything, but it wasn't as if she could stop herself from feeling hurt by the things that Sirius said - or quite often didn't say. It was a confusing time for her but she was lucky to have a friend like Marlene who could push her through when the forecast was less than stellar.