b Now. /b
It was an autumn day; the leaves had turned orange in the big oak tree by the lake. However, the weather told everyone else different, suggesting that it was already early winter. A mixture of rain and sleet was hammering down on the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, tearing all the leaves off the trees surrounding the building, even those of the oak tree, which we were speaking of.
The two people who currently resided under this oak tree, however, seemed not to care about the dreadful precipitation that was now pounding on their heads, soaking their hair. Their eyes were alight with laughter as they clutched the near-frozen butterbeer bottles in their numb hands. They beamed at each other and snorted into their butterbeer as the boy told a joke.
The girl set her butterbeer on the ground and threw her long, wet hair into a messy ponytail, a wide grin residing on her face.
Sirius Black watched her curiously. "How do those elastic hair ties get so small?"
"What?" Andromeda Black asked her cousin, her brown eyes full of confusion.
"When you girls have them on your wrists, they're huge, but when you pull them out of your hair, they're tiny!"
Andromeda rolled her eyes. "Are you seriously asking me this question, you dimwit?"
When Sirius gave no answer, Andromeda took it to mean that he was being, ignore the pun, i serious /i . She raised an eyebrow, and said warily, "We twist them around. See?"
She took out her hair tie, held it up to Sirius, and put her hair into another, even messier ponytail, but in slow motion, so her favorite cousin could see. "Oh! I get it! You i twist /i them!"
"How long has that question been on your mind, cousin?"
"About a week, since I saw Mary putting up her hair in Charms," Sirius grinned.
Andromeda rolled her eyes; it was a very Sirius-like thing to do: see something, have a question about it, and ask her later. She looked up at the grey sky as a lightning bolt shaped like a tree streaked across it. "It's so pretty," she murmured.
"What is?" Sirius asked.
"This storm."
Sirius pulled a look of disgust over his face. "You really find it that pretty?"
Andromeda nodded, not taking her eyes off the grey sky, which was growing darker by the minute. "It's awful," Sirius continued, "it represents hate, and fear, and anger. I have enough of that at home, and I find nothing pretty in a lightning storm that always reminds me of that."
Andromeda looked sideways at her cousin, her brother. "To me, it represents freedom. Free from all this 'Purebloods are superior' bullshit. It inspires me." She turned back to the dark sky as another flash of bright light lit up the sky.
She sat up for a moment, straightening her back. She stood up, and walked out from under the shelter of the oak tree, holding her arms out wide. She was tall, nearly an inch taller than Sirius, with dark hair. Not as dark as her sister Bellatrix's, but a softer chestnut brown. Her facial features were defined, her eyes a dark brown. She looked almost like Bellatrix, tall; the only difference between their appearances was the kind look that had permanently settled in on Andromeda's face. She was pretty in a unique way, not breathtakingly beautiful like Narcissa, but not a hard beauty like Bellatrix either. She was the happy medium.
"Cousin, what are you doing?" Sirius called.
"Standing," Andromeda said with a cheeky smile.
Sirius stood up and took note of the puddles circling the tree. "You know, Cousin, the rain can be pretty fun sometimes…"
"Oh? Why do you say that n−"
What she asked, Sirius did not know, for he wasn't paying attention. He was concentrating on splashing the muddy water in her face. "Oh! You-! You git!"
At that moment, she ran up, stopped a foot away from him and kicked a great wave of water in his direction. His jeans, which he had managed to keep dry until then, were soaked. He threw his head back and laughed, then bent over and splashed the water in her direction.
They went back and forth for five minutes, soaking each other to the bone. When they finally stopped, they were covered, from head to toe, in thick mud. They both stared at each other for about a second, then burst out laughing. A stitch in Andromeda's side began to form as she uttered out the words, "This-better-come-out-of-my-hair!" in between laughs.
Suddenly, James Potter showed up, an amused look on his face. "What were you two doing?
Sirius looked sideways at his cousin. "I don't know, Cousin. What were we doing?"
"I don't know Cousin, what do you think we were doing?"
James shook his head and laughed. "I hate to break it to you, guys, but you don't need to call each other cousin for the rest of us to get the point."
"But real names are overrated, Prongs," Sirius grinned back as Andromeda wrung out her hair, sending a load of water hurtling toward the already muddy grass.
"Do what you want, you two. Look, on to the point. Do either of you know how cold it is out here?"
"About thirty degrees, I'd say?" Andromeda looked at Sirius for confirmation.
"Yeah, somewhere in there."
"Well, it's freezing, so I'd suggest that the both of you get inside before you freeze your arses off. And Sirius, don't you remember, we have something to do tonight." James looked at Sirius, raising an eyebrow, hoping that he would remember.
Sirius responded to James with a puzzled look. James looked to Andromeda who was still wringing the mud and water out of her hair, making sure she wasn't paying attention, before jerking his head toward the Whomping Willow and then at the full moon, it's light barely showing through the clouds.
Sirius' eyes widened in recognition as Andromeda replaced her ponytail and stood up. "What do you have to do tonight?" she asked intently.
Sirius looked at her and lied smoothly, "Nothing, just a guy thing."
Andromeda nodded and looked at her shoes. She knew her cousin perfectly well enough to know that he was up to something; she just decided not to show it. It wouldn't be long before she figured out what it was he was doing, and then she would confront him. That's how it always worked, anyway. Her marks may have been mediocre, but she was a headstrong girl.
They walked to the Great Hall together. Andromeda Black hugged her cousin, and went to sit with her girlfriends at the Ravenclaw table, and Sirius watched as her friends started poking fun at her muddy appearance, made sure she wasn't watching, then turned and walked out with James and met up with his friends Remus and Peter outside the Great Hall.