Moving into a sitting position, Dora gingerly touched the bump on her head. Her shoulder felt bruised as well, but she didn't exactly feel like explaining to Pomfrey why she'd been chasing after Sirius when she was supposed to be 'resting'. Her stomach twisted as if she'd been punched at his declaration that he couldn't stand the sight of her. Was this really what it'd come to?
"How low my opinion of you goes depends on what you do," she snapped irritably, the knot in her stomach calming somewhat when she began to realise - or at least hope - that he wouldn't tell. "We know what the consequences are. We know how bad things are going to get if this gets out. We both decided we trusted you enough to tell you straight out, and I'm really, really hoping we weren't wrong."
She sucked in a deep breath. Normally by now she'd be crying, whether fake or real tears, but instead she was fighting the urge, not wanting him to think she was trying to manipulate him. "Anything the Daily Prophet or Rita fucking Skeeter can throw at me won't be half as humiliating as the shite you said and let Carrow spew about me. Me using a strap-on and fucking you up the arse? You bending me over a bed and fucking me bloody? Carrow saying he was going to find me and rape me until I was dead while you watched?" The whole fighting back tears thing was a losing battle, and she hated herself for it. "Nothing Skeeter could possibly say would even remotely match that sort of humiliation. D'you wanna know why, Sirius? 'Cause me and Remus chose this. We know the consequences, and we decided to go ahead with it anyhow. Did you ever stop and think that maybe that means something? That we're not idiots, and if we're willing to risk all of that, then maybe there really is something there?
"He's not molesting me. He's barely even touched me. He's been having such a difficult time with all of this, knowing what could happen to him if we're discovered, but in the end he chose me. And I chose him." She closed her eyes, hardly able to look at Sirius anymore. "Please. I'm an adult now. I know I'm young, and I know I'm still a student, but that doesn't mean I'm incapable of feeling real, adult emotion. We haven't slept together, and I don't think we will for a while. It's not - it's not some animalistic surge of hormones. It means something to both of us. He said it's the sort of thing that people usually spend their whole bloody lives searching for, and most of them never find it, or they lose it 'cause they were too young or it was the wrong time or - I don't know. Instead of getting that, they settle. I don't want to settle." She finally opened her eyes and looked up at him. "Please don't make me settle."