The next day, everything just goes my way. Okay, actually, it doesn't.
Potions. What happens? I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count. So my potion explodes on me again. It's supposed to be a 24-hour heating potion, which stays a constant temperature and keeps anything you put in it warm for 24 hours. But mine isn't. I'm looking at someone else's potion and trying to figure out why my potion isn't a pale green, and when I go back to mine, it has this huge bubble on the top. I'm thinking "uh oh", and then, it explodes.
It gets all over me, and I run to a sink and wash it off. Gloppy totters over in his version of a sprint. He looks rather horrified, and I'm totally freaked out. I hope it's not poisonous. "You made a coloring potion, not a heating potion. You reversed the amounts of the chopped birch root and the powdered walrus blood, and put the unicorn hair in too early!"
"What's a coloring potion?" I ask, my throat tightening with dread.
He harumphs at this, as if I should know. I probably should. "A coloring potion dyes everything it touches the color of the liquid." I look down at my hands, which I've washed the potion off, and then self-consciously bring my hands up to my face. "It seems you've washed the potion off your skin quickly enough, but your robes will be that color semi-permanently. Some potions last longer than others. I doubt yours will last longer than this semester."
"Addie! Your hair..." Lily says from behind me.
Okay, I don't faint, like one of those wussy girls in Muggle movies, but everything around me does get a little blurry, and I completely disconnect from the outside world, like when I found out that my pet rabbit Lumpy had died.
"Miss Mackenzie? Miss Mackenzie?" I kind of hear Gloppy's voice from far away.
"She's in shock. Can I take her to the bathroom?" Lily asks.
Gloppy looks confused, but gives his consent. I'm in a daze as Lily firmly leads me to the girl's bathroom. She pushes me in front of a mirror. "You have to look sometime, you might as well face up to it," she says.
I don't want to do it. I know what the color of the potion was. It was blue. Bright blue. Not sky blue. Not ocean blue. Not an understated navy blue. Bright blue. Bright blue like something cheap and plastic. Bright blue like an unripe Bertie Botts Every Flavor Bean. Bright blue like... Hey, I like it. I stare at my reflection in the mirror, and put a hand up to my hair. My reflection does too. I can scarcely believe it's me. I look at Lily and grin. She looks at me with a puzzled expression. "I like it, Lily," I say. "It's... fun!"
Lily gives me a relieved smile. "Well, it's definitely attention-getting. Now, aren't there any boys you want to get the attention of? How about that Sirius Black?"
I give her a cynical look. "Lily, he's a year older and he only goes out with popular, beautiful, cool girls. Like I have a chance with him?" Lily, for some reason, looks crestfallen, and I realize that she is relating what I've said to her situation with James. "I mean, my chances with him are about a million times worse than yours with James; James actually likes you." Or, he did, anyway. At one point. I shake my head at my pessimism. "And I'm not even attracted to him, he -"
I'm cut off by the bell, and I'm glad, because I have no idea what I would have said next. As Lily and I walk to Transfiguration together, I remember. "He's self-centered, and stuck up, and mean," I say eagerly. Lily rolls her eyes, a half-smile on her lips, and I cross my arms, frustrated. "Really, Lily, you just must be blind to it, because you can't see any of that in James..."
Her arm flings to the side automatically, hitting me in the stomach, reproaching me for mentioning the secret crush in public.
When I walk into the Great Hall for lunch, the entire Slytherin table stares at me, laughing their heads off. I ignore them and sit down in my usual place.
"Adrienne, what happened to your hair?" Fawn shrieks as I spread my napkin out on my lap.
"Fawn, you know damn well what happened to my hair, and if you don't, I consider you the singly most stupid witch on the planet. You were there in Potions."
"Oh, that's right," she turns to the seventh years. "Adrienne's potion exploded on her! She's so dumb; she couldn't even make a heating potion correctly!"
I frown and help myself to some macaroni and cheese. The best thing to do is just ignore it. My hands clench into fists and I can sense Helen and Lily giving each other a look, getting ready to restrain me if my temper flares. I stare down at my plate, concentrating on not getting upset, my appetite gone.
"God, what's your problem, Fawn?" I hear a deep voice say. I look up cautiously. It's Sirius. He's sticking up for me. He's sticking up for me? "I happen to like Mackenzie's hair." He likes my hair?
He likes my hair! Wait, who cares if Sirius likes my hair? I'm not one of those girls. Still, I'm able to smile to myself at Fawn's speechless look. Sirius looks my way and gives me a grin. Bet he feels all noble, sticking up for the pariah. I quickly pull the corners of my mouth down and give him a stony glare. I didn't need his help; I'm perfectly capable of duffing Fawn up. A crease forms between his eyebrows as he looks away.
After comfortingly normal afternoon classes, I head to the empty classroom, filled with apprehension, for my tutoring. The boy, Severus, looks up at me with a cold look as he hears me walk in, but his expression changes to one of surprise when he sees my hair.
"Weren't you at lunch?" I ask.
"No," he says, as if he had better things to do.
"Don't give me that tone of voice, I bet you were hiding out in the library like I was yesterday."
His face shows only the slightest disclosure that I am right.
I meet his glare with a smart aleck smirk.
He looks upward as if he thinks I am dim.
"I know I'm right."
"If you're so clever, why's your hair blue?"
"Maybe I wanted it that way."
"Maybe your potion exploded on you. Again." He crosses his arms with his own smart aleck smirk. "Let's get to work. If you continue to be this bad at Potions, you're going to kill yourself one of these days."
After an arduous hour, I leave the room, pleased that I only made two mistakes. "Cheers, Severus," I say.
"See you tomorrow."
I give him a half smile, and he looks away.
I report to McGonagal's office right after dinner. She isn't there, so I sit down at a desk in the back to wait.
"So, what did you do to get detention, anyway?" The voice is cool, with a teasing lilt to it.
My ears recognize my champion of the lunch table, but I don't turn to look at him. "Guess," I say in a flat tone.
The voice sounds a bit confused now. "I told James not to report your fight with Fawn to McGonagal." Sirius comes into my view and sits sideways in the seat next to me, so he's facing me.
"Oh, different fight." Sirius raises an eyebrow. I wish I could do that, but I think it escapes everyone except popular, egotistical people who know they're hot. Or maybe my eyebrows just don't have the coordination. "Fabian Malfoy," I respond to his eyebrow's question.
"You really like to get physical with him, don't you?"
I scowl. "He's the one who always starts it."
"As I recall, you're always the one who jumps on him," replies Sirius dryly.
I shoot him a nasty look as Professor McGonagal walks into the room.
She nods a greeting to us. "Miss Mackenzie, Mr. Black. You will be cleaning the mouse cages." I start over to the side wall that has about twelve mouse cages along it. "Without magic." McGonagal holds out her hand, and I place my wand in it, as does Sirius. "There are supplies in the cupboard in the back of the room. I will return in two hours."
Sirius and I start toward the cupboard. As we get out supplies, there is an awkward silence between us. Usually, I don't mind awkward silences, even delight in others' discomfort in them, but for some reason, I don't like this one. "So what did you do to get detention, then?" I ask, filling my bucket with water.
Sirius' ears get a little pink. I watch him closely. Could he be blushing? "I fell asleep in class, then, um..." he laughs uncomfortably. "I transfigured McGonagal's quill into a vibrator." He looks down at his bucket, as if he doesn't want to meet my gaze, fills it with warm water at the sink, and adds some soap.
"You idiot!" I stare at him. "What, were you trying to get a detention?"
He meets my eyes with one of his Lothario looks. "Maybe."
I roll my eyes. That trying-to-be-sexy look doesn't work on me. "Puh-leeze." I think about what he had said. "Do you have a crush on McGonagal or something?"
"Hardly!" He scoops some soap bubbles from his bucket and flicks them at me. I scowl and dip my sponge in my bucket, then throw it at him. He laughs and splashes me with water from his bucket. I gasp and return the splash. The water fight continues, and, in a few minutes, I'm surprised to find myself laughing with Sirius. When I run out of water, I run to the sink, and begin to fill my bucket. I glance back over my left shoulder, and not seeing Sirius, turn my head to look over my other shoulder, right as he dumps his bucket of water over my head. "Ah! I'm going to get you so good!" I yell.
Sirius grabs me by the waist and pulls me away from the sink, spinning me around so I'm facing him. "No, you're not," he says in a teasing tone.
I struggle to escape his grasp, and then look up at him defiantly. "I could knee you in the groin right now," I say.
He just looks into my eyes and laughs, and I find I cannot look away. We stand there for a few seconds, just stand there, and I find my obstinate look softening.
My heart fills with terror as he begins to pull me closer. What am I supposed to do? Say? What is going on? Why is he just looking at me like that? I frown up at him, as the door to the classroom opens.
"Black!" Sirius quickly steps away from me, and I have this odd feeling that the place where his hands had been resting is now cold and exposed. I turn my head and see an enraged McGonagal. "Mackenzie!" Her mouth is pinched and her eyes are shining with anger. "An extra detention to you both! Clean this up now!" She slams the door behind her.
Later, I look up from my mopping with a yawn. Sirius is looking at me, and catches me yawning.
"Tired?" he asks.
"Mmm."
He gives me a lopsided grin. "Me too. I was even falling asleep in my classes today. I was ou -- up late last night."
"Yeah, probably shagging some girl." I roll my eyes. Sirius starts laughing, and I turn a deep crimson as I realize that I said that out loud. That's what happens when I get too comfortable around people. I stare down at the puddle I am mopping up, trying as hard as I can to stop blushing. It never works.
"Nah," Sirius says.
"Well, you weren't studying," I say, then reconsider. Somehow, Sirius is able to both goof off and get excellent marks. "Were you?"
Sirius cracks a grin at that, too. "Nope. Anyway, what were you doing last night?"
I wonder why he is interested. "I took a walk outside," I say. "Couldn't sleep."
"You're not scared, walking alone at night?"
"No way." I think of the werewolf. "Well, not until last night." Sirius raises an eyebrow as we move on to clean the cages. "See, there was this werewolf, it just came running out of the forest, and then there was this dog - well, I knocked the werewolf out with a curse, but I don't know how long it would have lasted. The dog tackled the werewolf, see." I give a small smile. "So I really owe a lot to the dog; I left it some bacon by the forest this morning, but that's really not enough, and it'll probably get eaten by some other animal, so I'm going to go looking for it later."
Sirius looks quite distressed. "Don't go out tonight," he says with concern.
"Why?" I ask, questioning his concern as much as his reason.
He tries to put on his normal countenance. "The moon's still full," he explains. "Werewolves are out for three nights."
"Oh," I say, puzzled and touched by his concern.
The conversation moves on, and only later, do I realize he never did tell me why he was up late last night.
A/N: So... I felt sorry for all of you who were pleading for another chapter, so I updated before I said I was going to. Don't count on it happening again. I want a good 10 reviews this time, and I'm not done writing the next chapter, so think of your reviews as inspiration for some minor writer's block. I thought this was a good chapter, what did you think? Bad stuff? Good stuff? Funny stuff? Happiness-making stuff? Spelling and usage mistakes? Just please review. Thanks.
Oh, and this chapter is dedicated to hunni07, the first person to review the third chapter, and the one who left the longest review yet.
RemmysGal: No, Addie, Lily and Helen are in sixth year, and the Marauders are in seventh year.
Nanners0474: Maybe... you'll just have to wait and see. Same to you, SiriusLives001!