Chapter Eleven

By the end of lunch that day, I had set up camp in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. I figured no one ever went in there, and Myrtle's not social enough to tell anyone about what I do in there. The way Sirius suggested I… become furry… had two parts: a potion, which made the body more susceptible to change, and a spell, which was nonverbal (of course—make things more difficult) and harder to remember than every word of my last History of Magic essay.

I had laboriously lugged my cauldron up to the bathroom (yes, I realize that I could have moved it with magic, but where's the fun in that? That's a total lie—I couldn't remember the spell for it until I had already made it to the bathroom, so I used it anyway to carry it the three feet through the door just to prove to myself that I wasn't a total failure of a witch) and gathered all the ingredients which, after I figured out what the faded words actually said, were surprisingly simple—I had most of the ingredients already, and what I didn't have, I asked Slughorn for. They weren't exactly rare, so I told him I needed them for a potion to cure a friend's owl of the sniffles, since I don't have my own pet. Needless to say, he bought it.

The potion supposedly took a little under a week to brew—six days, to be exact— I could meet Sirius's deadline. There's still time to back out, I kept telling myself, but I knew I wouldn't. I wanted this. Not just for Remus or some stupid expectation from Sirius; this was about me defying the law and wanting to become an animal. That came out wrong—ah, you get the picture. Point is, I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't something that I genuinely wanted, and the scary thing was, I did.

So I dragged everything into the farthest and darkest stall, conjured in the toilet a small flame(that I spent nearly an hour trying to make hover just above the water),set the cauldron on the toilet seat, and began brewing the potion. When I reached the agonizing point where the instructions told me to 'Let brew for twelve hours,' I packed up the rest of the ingredients and stacked them on the back of the toilet, tucked the books in my bag, and left the stall, casting a spell that would hopefully seal the door to my makeshift brewery.

Waiting was definitely the hardest part. The rest of the day was spent thinking about the potion, rather than actually doing work, taking notes, or anything else that might help me pass this year. I did come to the unhappy conclusion that the next time I'd have to visit the potion would be at around one in the morning, meaning I'd have to sneak around the castle in the dark. Well, if I could break the law for this, I guess breaking a few school rules wouldn't make too much of a difference. So I began planning my escape from Gryffindor Tower, mapping in my head which passages and staircases I could take to make it safely to Myrtle's bathroom. I also tried telling myself that I should take a quick nap—I wouldn't be any good to myself tired—but my brain was too wired, so I used the time to finish, ironically enough, my Potions homework.

Half past midnight, though, I couldn't wait any longer. I grabbed the books and crept out of my dorm, where I had been doing my work quietly and with the curtains drawn so if my dorm mates happened to notice me, they might think I was asleep. I rushed soundlessly through the common room, slowly opening the portrait hole in an attempt to not wake the Fat Lady, and sliding out into the empty hallway. The corridors were eerie at night: Sound seemed to amplify off the walls, paintings yelled at you for using your wand as a light, and I constantly feared that a teacher would jump out from behind a corner. But amazingly enough, I made it to the bathroom without meeting anyone. I gently pushed open the door, wincing when it creaked, and slipped inside. I hurried to the last stall and undid the sealing charm on the door. It swung open casually, and paranoid me glanced over my shoulder one last time to make sure I was alone. When it seemed as if I was, I entered the stall, then dropped my wand, startled, and backed up, my hand pressed against my heart.

"Sirius," I hissed, still in shock at seeing another person, "what on earth are you doing?"

The git had moved my ingredients to the floor and was lounging on the back of the toilet, leaning up against the wall of the stall, reading a book by wandlight. He glanced up and smiled when he saw me. "Figured you could use some help—I was right, too. Your fire wasn't nearly hot enough."

Sure enough, the fire under my cauldron looked much brighter; flames licked the sides of the pewter excitedly while the potion itself seemed to bubble more enthusiastically.

"But how did—the sealing charm—how'd you get in?" I sputtered.

"The tops of the stalls are open, Alex," Sirius said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I just climbed over."

"But—but then—why are you still here?"

"I was going to add the ingredients for you, in case you didn't show or fell asleep or something."

"But why?"

He seemed to think about this for a second, then answered confidently. "Because everyone deserves a shot at happiness, and fear or stubbornness shouldn't stand in the way."

I stared at him in shock—a different kind of shock than the 'seeing some random guy sitting in the stall of your supposedly secret potion' kind, but shock all the same.

"Sirius, I didn't think such beautiful words have ever come from your mouth," I told him, eyebrows still raised.

"Why thank you," he grinned. "Now toss me the fluxweed. We have a potion to brew."

**A/N: Sorry for the late update! Also sorry that it's a little short… What do you think of Sirius deciding to help her? Review with opinions!**