"Yeah. He found me." She smiled. "As far as I know."

"I can imagine why," Adeline said. "You said Madam Pomfrey said Sirius found you?"

She nodded, resisting the urge to run her fingers over the scars. "Yeah, I'm completely healed."

"That’s good. You’re all healed up then?"

"I'm fine," Andromeda said, smiling at Molly. "I swear, I did not sneak out, I did not trick Madam Pomfrey into releasing me, nothing."

"Alright, fine. How are you going now anyway?"

She nodded. "Yeah. That's it," she said. "I'm kinda glad I don't remember."

Adeline nodded. “Just the fall?”

"I didn't fall, that kid pushed his chair into me!" she defended herself. "I'm not made of glass!"

"Fine, but if you fall over again it’s totally not my fault."

"I swear, I'm fine! You can stop hovering. Madam Pomfrey let me out, didn't she?"

"I can't think of anyone who would turn down a million galleons," Andie agreed, sniggering a bit. "I certainly wouldn't."

"You couldn’t pay me a million galleons to do that job." Marlene laughed but then stopped. "Well actually I wouldn’t mind a million galleons…"

Andromeda giggled a bit, shaking her head. "I don't know, but if they did, ew. Gross. Like, points to you buddy, but ew."

"How do they figure out all the flavours for Bertie Bott’s? I mean do they actually eat earwax?!”

Andromeda scooted over, letting Marlene crawl in bed next to her. She shivered slightly, realizing just how cold she was. Marlene's body gave off plenty of heat and Andromeda's was having trouble producing it. "I'm not lying." She shook her head, rubbing her arms. "Talking about nothing in particular sounds great."

"I don’t believe you." Marlene raised her eyebrows. "But I see you’re eaten up about it so I’m just gonna get under the covers—" She made a shooing motion to Andromeda and the crawled under the bed covers next to her, "—and eat sweets and talk about nothing in particular."

"Nothing, nothing," she said quickly, folding her arms across her stomach to hide the already hidden bandages. "I think he's told you everything."

"He said he found you all beaten up, I didn’t press him he seemed quite touchy about it… Why what hasn’t he told me?"

Andromeda froze. Oh Merlin. How much does she know raced through her mind. She stared at Marlene in a shocked horror. "How much..." She cleared her suddenly dry throat. "What did Sirius tell you?"

"Sure sure, well we’re okay now. I’ve actually come straight from seeing him to see you. I’m thinking it’s you he’s worried about."

Andromeda gave her an incredulous look, and refrained from smacking the other girl upside the head. "He cares for you. And knowing him, he's head over heals for you. My best guess... And don't quote me on this, is that he didn't want Peter to know he was worried about something." She had a pretty good idea that if that was true, she was the thing he was worried about.

"Only because I pry." Marley rolled her eyes. "I stuck my nose into your guys’ business and I found out. Nothing to do with him caring for me."

Andromeda frowned. Peter Pettigrew wasn't her biggest fan. And she was pretty sure that he didn't know that she and Sirius were still in contact. "He wouldn't. He's head over heals for you, Marley. I think... If I know anything about my cousin, it's that he cares for you. A lot. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're the only other one that knows that Sirius and I are talking still, right? Pettigrew, Potter, Lupin, none of them know?"

"He lied about me to save his own ass. I don’t know what he was hiding from Peter but it was definitely something. He wouldn’t just make up something about me… Would he?"

She shrugged. "Hell if I know. Someone--I think Madam Pomfrey said Sirius-- found me and brought me in. I'm not sure though. I don't remember anything."

"Exactly," she said with a smile. "I mean, at least in Quidditch we know we’re bound to get injured at some point. Besides, more often than not there are people around us to help." She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "How’d you end up in here, by the way? After your fall."

Andromeda let out a sort of purring noise as he played with her hair, and closed her eyes, relaxing against him. "I'm still really proud of you. You were in a shitty situation, and you got out of it and I'm proud of you." She hadn't felt this relaxed in a while. "It sucks, not being able to actually treat you like family. I wish I could. I wish I wasn't so scared of Bella and our family."She sighed. She wanted a drink. But the pain killer potions would react badly. "I'm not strong. If I was, I wouldn't have done this," she said, waving her arms around. She winced. That hurt. "That... that sounds amazing. Why can't we have parents who actually give a shit about us, Siri? Y'know, if I ever have kids, I'm not going to treat them like our family did us."

His head leaning back on the wall, Sirius let his eyes droop and his fingers play with Andie’s hair. He hummed a sound of surprise when she mentioned her conversation with Regulus, an eye opening to peer at her in obvious curiosity. “I didn’t really have a choice. I had to run. I have to act unfazed, like it didn’t matter. But not a day goes by that I don’t think about that night. Honestly, I wish I never had to do it. It would be simpler to be Regulus, wouldn’t it?” Sirius shook his head lazily, wishing for a bottle of whiskey or something, anything, to numb the sting of this discussion. “You’re strong, Andie. Strongest person I know.” His head fell to her shoulder, his mind tracing through memories of the summers with the Potters. “It’s amazing. Although, the Potters put all other parents to shame, to be honest. But it was nice, to have someone give a shit. It made me realize how little my parents did. How terrible they were.”

Andromeda stared. "What?" she asked, both amused and aghast. "Why did you slap him?"

"Well I slapped Sirius." Marlene grinned at her friend, popping another sweet in her mouth.

"Uh, not much else on my end," she said, shrugging and smiling. Had Marlene dropped it? Merlin, she hoped so. She liked Marlene, she really did. She just didn't want to be looked at like Sirius and Frank had looked at her. She hated that look.

"Well alrighty then." Marlene clapped her hands and rubbed them together. "So what else did I miss?"