It was morning. At least, judging by Sirius's raging headache and distinctly sour taste of morning-after alcohol on his breath, it was morning, but when he opened his eyes, the space between the closed curtains of his four-poster bed had an odd quality about it, an almost greenish tint to the light...

He scrambled out of the bed, nearly tripping over the bedsheets and curtains in his haste, and instantly wished he hadn't moved so quickly. He clapped a hand over his mouth both to keep himself from yelling and also to prevent himself from vomiting as his hangover protested against his sudden movement.

He wasn't in Gryffindor Tower. The emerald curtains hanging from each bed, the viridian rug covering the stone floor, the jade eyes of the serpent motifs carved into the bedposts, the greenish tint to the very air itself; all the signs pointed unmistakably to Slytherin. But if he was in the Slytherin dormitory, then that could only mean...

Hesitantly, he reached forward to pull back the curtains of the bed he'd just vacated. Don't be Snivellus, he thought, don't be Snivellus, don't be Snivellus, please don't be Snivellus...

At the first glimpse of the dark-haired girl still sleeping beneath the sage-colored sheets, he breathed a sigh of relief. At the second, panic swept over him. "Fuck," he breathed.

He let the curtains around the bed drop and quickly turned to the nearest trunk, opening it as quietly as he could and yanking out the first set of green and silver robes he could find, throwing them over his head, trying to remember what events had transpired the night before to bring him to his current predicament. He'd gone to the party with Emilie, like they'd agreed. They'd had their one cup of punch, like they'd agreed. They'd gone their separate ways after that, like they'd agreed - hadn't they? Or hadn't they...

He frowned, trying to ignore his headache as he went to a mirror hanging over a basin in one corner of the dormitory, trying to comb his long hair to one side and make it lay flat. He remembered Mariah yelling at him by the punch bowl. He remembered James yelling at him on the dance floor. He definitely remembered Lovell and Snape pissing in the punch bowl, and thought he remembered Emilie telling him she was pregnant - or had it been Lily? Or maybe it was Geoff... or had Geoff told him Wendy was pregnant... but that brought him no closer to how he'd arrived in the dungeons. He gave up on his hair, and, content that he resembled his (admittedly far less attractive) younger brother enough to sneak past any hungover Slytherins who had collapsed in the common room, he headed out of the dormitory as quickly and quietly as he could.

Nearly every single one of the numerous sofas, armchairs, and chaises in the common room had at least one Slytherin strewn across it in varying states of undress, all of them still sound asleep. Sirius, unable to believe his incredible luck, tiptoed across the room to where he spied his brother sitting stiffly upright in an armchair sleeping. After quickly tying Regulus's shoelaces together, Sirius continued his perilous journey through the room and for a moment believed he would actually escape unnoticed-

Until he tripped over Edwin Mulciber, who had seemed to have collapsed as soon as he'd entered the common room, sprawled as he was across the steps leading to the passageway back into the dungeon corridor. Mulciber groaned and rubbed at his face, groggily cracking open one eye. "Oy, watch it, Black," he grunted. "Where're you off to so early?"

Thinking quickly, Sirius adopted the most Regulus voice he could muster. "Library. Heard a fascinating story about Vincent Duc de Trefle-Picques's role in the Goblin Rebellion of the eighteenth century last night and wanted to follow up on it. Did you know that most magical historians believe him to be the fourth great-grandson of Linfred of Stinchcombe, who's actually a distant cousin of Egbert the Egregious, and Egbert is the-"

Mulciber groaned again and lowered his head back to the floor, closing his eyes. "Just go on, Black, and shut up about your fucking History of Magic..."

Sirius breathed a sigh of relief, scrambled the rest of the way up the steps, and down the passageway back into the corridor, hurrying through the Entrance Hall and up several flights of stairs as quickly as he could, determined to make it back without anyone noticing him. Had he slept with Emilie? Knowing himself, there was little doubt. A week ago he would have said absolutely not, no matter how smashed he was, but somehow... somehow he had managed to find himself in her dormitory, tangled up in her bedsheets. He suddenly remembered her lips on his (they had been almost as soft as Geoff's, if memory served, and Sirius Black never forgot a kiss), and felt the pit of his stomach drop.

He was such an idiot. Geoff would never forgive him now.

He racked his brain, struggling once again to remember the events of the night before. He had gone to the party with Emilie... and then he had spiked the punch... and then Mariah had yelled at him. He paused. What had they even been yelling about? Hazy memories of a tearful, dark-haired girl shouting at him flitted through his mind. Why don't you like me anymore... Sirius, I'm pregnant... How could you, Sirius, you don't even like her...

"Oh, fuck..." Sirius stopped dead in his tracks. Had... had Mariah told him she was pregnant? Was that why she had been so upset? "Oh, fuck..." He frowned suddenly. They had never slept together. It couldn't be his baby, which meant it was... Lovell's. Is that what they had fought about?

"Great," muttered Sirius, sighing. It had been hard enough he had to pretend the past three months didn't even happen. Now this.

He took a deep breath when he reached the portrait hole, and stepped through. He just had to make it through the common room without being spotted, and then he could-

"Sirius," said Mariah from a squashy armchair near the fire. She looked as though she had slept there.

"Fuck," muttered Sirius under his breath as she got up.

"I need to talk to you," she said. She didn't sound angry this morning, at least. "Listen, I... what are you wearing?"

"Nothing," said Sirius confidently.

"Are those..." He saw her eyes widen as her confusion dwindled. She looked at him, then at the portrait hole, then back at him in the emerald green robes, narrowing her eyes. "Where were you last night?"

"Asleep," said Sirius.

"Are those Emilie Delacroix's dress robes?" demanded Mariah, her voice significantly more high pitched than before.

Sirius raised his hands in a pacifying gesture, shushing her. "Keep your voice down, will you?" he hissed.

"Did you sleep with her, Sirius?" Mariah was no longer calm.

Sirius clapped a hand to his forehead. "I didn't know what I was doing." He rolled his eyes at the disgusted look that flitted across Mariah's face. "Oh, come on! I was sloshed!"

"Yeah, well, so was I, but you don't see me sleeping with half the school!" said Mariah.

"That's not fair," Sirius said, his voice rising. "You've got a boyfriend, so it's not exactly the sa-"

"Not anymore," interrupted Mariah.

Sirius stopped and blinked several times. "What?"

"I haven't got a boyfriend anymore," said Mariah slowly, frowning at him. "I ended it last night. Thought you might want to know, but I guess I was wrong."

"Wait, so... what about the baby?" Sirius asked.

"What baby?" Mariah asked.

"Last night, you said-oh," Sirius broke off. Maybe it hadn't been Mariah... "Are you not...?"

Mariah scoffed, one hand defensively on her midriff. "Fuck you, Sirius Black!"

"Oy! What's all the shouting about?"

Sirius and Mariah turned to see that Geoff had appeared in the stairwell to the boys' dormitories, a tartan dressing gown thrown over his pajamas.

"Why don't you ask him," Mariah said forcefully, thrusting an accusatory finger at Sirius. "He's rather fetching in his new dress robes, isn't he?" She turned on her heel and stormed off up the staircase leading to the girls' dormitories.

"What-?" Geoff's eyes turned from the girls' stairwell to Sirius, and as he looked the dark-haired boy up and down, comprehension dawned. His lips pressed themselves into a thin line and color rushed to his cheeks, his ears turning nearly as red as his hair. "Tell me this isn't what it looks like," he said stiffly.

Sirius looked down at the emerald robes he was wearing, then back up at Geoff. "Geoff, listen to me, I was drunk. I didn't know what I was doing," he said, holding his hands up as though to steady the other boy's reaction.

Geoff turned on his heel and disappeared back up the boys' dormitory stairs. Sirius groaned again, louder, his hands clawed as he ran them through his hair.

"All I wanted was to go to the party!" he cried to the empty common room.