Unsurprisingly, 'one night' hadn't remained that way at all. The large black dog had become the newest addition to the household and had affectionately received the name "Beastie" due to Kreacher's dislike for the creature. It seemed a mutual dislike on both parts.
While seeming happy to spend time with both Lyra and Estrella, Beastie seemed to be particularly attached to Estrella. Whenever Lyra would leave to spend time with Harry, Beastie would barely spend a moment away from Estrella's side, following her from room to room. At first, Estrella had found it rather annoying to constantly be tripping over the dog but after a while, she had come to enjoy the company while Lyra was out. Even though he couldn't respond, she found his company immensely better than Kreacher's.
It was one week before the new school year was due to start and Lyra had decided to make it her mission to get into the locked room on the top floor. Estrella had taken the afternoon to go spend it with Harry and Lyra had made the excuse she didn't feel well so that she could stay home and attempt to break into the room. She had currently been sat on the landing for the last half hour, trying everything she could get away with whilst keeping to the rules of using magic outside of Hogwarts. If it was in her homework, she could use it. Sadly, not much of what was included in her homework, proved very useful at all.
Alohomara had simply lit up the key hole with a golden light but did nothing more than that. Beastie whined softly as he watched Lyra take another failed attempt at the the lock, burying his head into his paws. He looked a lot more presentable now, his fur no longer matted together or as long it seemed. Lyra had woken up one morning to find him asleep outside Estrella's door looking like that. She had assumed Estrella had given him a bath after Lyra had went up to bed. Estrella had assumed Lyra had done the same. They both knew it hadn't been Kreacher.
"I know. But I can't use any of the stuff I've been studying outside of homework without getting into trouble!" She told him, scowling at the door in frustration. "I just want to know what's behind it!" She huffed, clambering to her feet. "I'm going to get a drink. Stay here."
She headed down the many sets of stairs all the way to the bottom floor to get a drink from the kitchen, her head swimming with possible ideas to get the door open. Of course, she had never tried to take a literal run at it, though she supposed Estrella and Remus had thought about that one. She didn't want to find out the results of that one.
Beastie barked loudly from the top floor as Lyra made herself a glass of juice. "I'm coming!" She shouted back, downing half of it and placing it back onto the counter, heading back up towards the room. Kreacher grumpily shuffled over to the glass and grabbed it, moving over to the sink to wash it up again.
"I said I'm coming!" She shouted again as Beastie continued to bark. "Calm-" she trailed away as she reached the top floor, not quite believing what she was seeing. Beastie was sat in front of the room Lyra had been forbidden to enter for as long as she had known about it. Except for the first time ever, the door was no longer closed but very much wide open.
"How did...but...you..." She muttered, slowly walking toward the room. "How?" She finally settled, looking down at Beastie in astonishment. He just barked again, spinning around and heading into the room without her. Lyra stood still for a moment, suddenly feeling rather nervous. What if it really was full of dark magic? Although from here, it looked remarkably like any other normal bedroom. She took a hesitant step forward into the room, still completely dumbfounded at how a dog had outsmarted her into entering a room that she had been kept out of for thirteen years.
"Whoah." She breathed, taking in the room before her. It was floor to ceiling royal red, Gryfffindor emblems stuck all over the walls along with pictures of women ripped from magazines and two wheeled travelling machines that Lyra had come to learn were called 'motorbikes' from a walk with Harry once. "What on earth..." She walked over to the wall, running her fingers over one of the Gryffindor flags.
Beastie had made himself at home on the end of the bed, curled up into a ball as his eyes followed her round the room. Lyra walked over to the desk and pulled one of the drawers open, grabbing out a stack of old school books and walking over to sit on the edge of the dust covered bed.
She flipped through the pages, nothing of any particular interest jumping out at her until a piece of parchment fell out from between the pages of one of the books. She picked it up, studying the rough sketch with a furrowed brow. "Snivellus Snape..." she mumbled quietly before her eyes widened. "No way!" She clasped her hand to her mouth, stifling a giggle. "Professor Snape?" She stared at it a little longer, watching as the sketch of young professor Snape was struck by lightning multiple times. Beastie sat up, appearing to be interested in what she was looking at. "The nose is quite accurate." She told him, placing it to one side as Beastie's tail began to wag, seemingly understanding what she had said.
"I wonder if this was Estrella's?" She mumbled to herself before looking around. But then that didn't explain the rest of the decor of the room. She picked up a note book, opening it to the front page and scanning it quickly before she felt her blood run cold.
Property of Sirius Black. DO NOT TOUCH.
That means you Prongs, and you Moony!
And it most DEFINITELY means not you either Wormtail!
If you've read this far ahead, piss off. You've read too much you nosey git.
It suddenly dawned on her. Lyra had been sitting in the room that Sirius Black had obviously grown up in. She dropped the book to the bed as though it had burnt her hands. Beastie looked down at it, whining quietly as his ears folded back to his head, looking as though he had been told off for something. She stared at the book in horror for a moment before she slowly reached out to pick it back up again, curiosity getting the better of her. What had young Sirius Black been so eager for no one to read.
She flipped through the pages, trying to find something of any interest to her. It seemed to just be full of meaningless sketches, most of which didn't make any sense to Lyra. There seemed to be the odd notes taken from lessons here and there, but apart from that, nothing. That was until she neared the last few pages and a word caught her attention.
Animagus. It had been underlined three times.
Below that, there were notes scrawled all over the page, most of which were scribbled out but from what Lyra could gather, it was a step by step for how to become an Animagus. The subject had always fascinated Lyra, but it wasn't something a student could even think about doing until seventh year. Not to mention you had to register yourself with the ministry. Lyra couldn't recall anything about the mentioning of Black being an Animagus, which was surely something that the public would need to know. Obviously he had either attempted it and hadn't succeeded, or these were just incredibly messy notes from class.
She looked over at Beastie, frowning at his appearance. "What's the matter with you, Hm?" She moved forward to run her fingers through his fur. "Maybe this room is full of dark magic...I wouldn't be surprised considering it's owner. It's pretty draining for me too. Come on, we'll explore it tomorrow. We can't risk getting caught now!" She got up off the bed, dusting herself off as she watched Beastie slink off the bed and out of the room, padding down the hall ahead of her and down the stairs. Lyra stood in the doorway for a moment, fighting her better judgement as she stared at the notebook on the bed. What if she shut the door and it locked again and the bloody dog couldn't do what it did today. She cursed herself as she leant back in, grabbing the notebook from the bed and slamming the door shut behind her as she left. The lock of the door clicked loudly and a red light flashed from the key hole as she let go of the handle before it could do anything to her. Just as well she had grabbed the book then. She wasn't going to be able to get back in anytime soon.
Throughout her last week at Grimmauld Place, she had kept the notebook a secret, keeping it hidden underneath her bed. Yet she constantly found herself going back to it every night, studying the notes meticulously. She couldn't get it out of her head. She had even borrowed another book from the library on the subject, but nothing had included any of the notes that Black seemed to have made on the subject.
Under the subheading- Mandrake Leaf - Black had noted down the difficulties of holding the mandrake leaf in your mouth for a whole month. In her text book, she had read that if at any point the leaf left your mouth or if you swallowed it, you'd have to start all over again on the new moon.
Black's notes on this were as followed;
Day Three: Swallowed it laughing when Prongs fell up the moving staircase. Try again next month.
Day Seventeen: Wormtail choked on his in the middle of the night and then swallowed it. I took the piss out of him and then proceeded to swallow mine today when Flint aimed a Bludger at my head during Slytherin's quidditch practice. Try again next month.
Day Twenty Eight: So close. Yet so far. Two days remaining and the silly prick Prongs accidentally swallowed his while drinking Butterbeer. Considered carrying on without him but what's the point? Spat it in the back of Snivellus' hood when he wasn't paying attention. Try again next month.
That's where the notes stopped regarding the mandrake leaf. Lyra assumed that him and his friends had stopped at that point. Nevertheless, it was interesting to read the tips for not losing the leaf throughout the days of the month. She often found herself forgetting who the book belonged to at times.
Despite this, Lyra found herself getting more curious by the day. There was a reason that it was an option in seventh year, it was both extremely difficult and dangerous if it went wrong. Though this didn't stop Lyra from heading to Slug and Jigger's Apothecary on the very last day before returning to Hogwarts to purchase a few mandrake leaves. Just to try it out of course. She wasn't stupid enough to try and become an Animagus at the age of thirteen. Nor was she smart enough. But she supposed that it didn't do any harm to practise, it was definitely something she was interested in studying seventh year. Even if it was still four years away.
Still, she made sure to pack the leaves and notebook at the bottom of her case under all of her clothes and books in case Estrella wanted to check she had packed everything she needed. Luckily, Estrella never bothered to check, she knew Lyra was quite capable of packing her own case. More capable than she knew actually.
Lyra had been quite sad to leave Beastie behind. He had been there every night that reading Sirius Black's notebook had become a bit overwhelming for her. He would sit by her bedside with his snout on her bed, whining softly as she would cry into his fur. She had never come across an animal that seemed to be as understanding about human emotion as Beastie did.
However, she was glad that she was leaving him with her aunt. She was confident that if Estrella had any worries, Beastie would be there for her.