Pabbay
Disclaimer: Not mine. Except for Kerynn, Talibeth and the plot.
Chapter 4: Random Snippet!
"Yo James, Remus, Pete, Sis- you coming tonight?" Talibeth called to them across the common room.
"'Course, sis!" Sirius replied for all of them. "It'll have to be after 10 o'clock, though, James and I have to clean out the Owlery tonight."
"The Owlery? What did you do this time?" Arabella asked.
"Fake flies in the Slytherins' pumpkin juice- classic Muggle trick, worked wonders!" James replied, grinning wickedly.
"Muggle trick? How did you find out about it then?" asked Lily, merely curious rather than rude.
"Never underestimate the amount of effort we put into our pranks, Miss Evans- just because it's Muggle doesn't mean it's off-limits to us!" Sirius reminded her.
"Wren, it's all set up, right?" whispered Tally.
Kerynn nodded. "Me and Bella-"
"Bella and I," Lily corrected her.
"Bella and I fixed it between Defence Against the Dark Arts and History of Magic."
Tally grinned, and Kerynn couldn't help smiling back, a feeling of such happiness flooding through her at being allowed to be normal for once.
"TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEA!" came the holler from across the common room.
Almost as one, the entire population of Gryffindor tower made their way over to the portrait hole, and exited the wing. As usual, Sirius and the others laughed delightedly at the acknowledgement from the seventh years, even if it was just shakes of heads and mutterings about 'immature first-years'.
"So what's first?" Peter asked, looking around the circle, shivering slightly- the girls (namely Kerynn and Arabella this time) had positioned a bucket of water over the door to the first-year boys dormitory, so that when the said door was opened the bucket and its contents would fall onto the person who had opened the door- this time Peter.
Lily muttered a spell, and Peter was warm and dry again.
"Thanks Lil," he added.
"Truth or Dare!" Tally announced, happily.
"Not again!" Sirius groaned. "Haven't you run out of ideas for truths and dares yet?"
"My dear little brother, you should know by now that I never run out of ideas."
"It's true Siri," James told him, remembering the number of times he'd played the game with Peter, Anna, Tallibeth and Sirius.
"I know. So, who's first?"
"You," Tally replied without hesitation. "Truth or Dare?"
"Dare."
"Alright! Let's see... Got it! You have to let James cut your hair!"
Sirius studied James, trying to determine whether or not to trust his hair to him. "Alright," he agreed.
"But! You have to let him do it blindfold!!!" Tallibeth continued, grinning.
"No way!" Sirius cried, tucking his ponytail protectively under his wizard's hat, which he'd been forced to wear by Professor McGonagall after she'd encountered him after his detention.
"Yes way! Or the Chicken-Walk dare!"
"What is it this time?" Sirius asked, and the others stared at him- Sirius Black, contemplating the Chicken-Walk? What was the world coming to?
"No Flying Lessons for the next three sessions," replied Lily immediately.
Sirius paled slightly. Everyone around the circle suddenly had the same thought: stuck between a rock and a hard place.
"Well? What's it to be, oh brave Dog-Star?" Arabella asked, somehow managing to sound both chivalrous and taunting simultaneously.
"Hair cut! Hair cut! Hair cut!" James and Tally chanted, and Peter joined in. "Hair cut! Hair cut!" Arabella's voice joined them. "Hair cut!"
"Alright!" Sirius cried, as he saw Remus open his mouth to join in. "Hair cut."
The others all cheered, and Lily looked up at the ceiling nervously, wondering how strong her silence charm was.
"Could we be a bit quieter?" she asked, nervously.
"Don't be such a worry-wart," James said with a grin, then muttered a spell and transfigured her wand into a pair of scissors and plucked them neatly from her hands. "Thank you!"
Lily scowled but remained silent; Peter tied the blindfold round James's eyes; and Sirius removed his hair from the ponytail, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. 'How did I let myself get roped into this?' Sirius asked himself silently as he felt the first (wonky) cut being made.
After ten minutes (Peter had timed it on his watch) Tally told James to stop and remove his blindfold. Sirius immediately opened his eyes and put his hands up to feel his hair. The others, James especially, burst out laughing. Sirius glared at them and got up, and made his way over to a mirror someone had left behind in the common room.
'Will the charm hold?' Lily thought suddenly as Sirius lifted the mirror up to his face. 'Nope,' she answered her own question as loud footsteps followed Sirius' yell.
"Boys' staircase," Kerynn muttered, identifying the source of the footsteps. "Come on!" she urged them, grabbing hold of the sleeves of Tally and Peter, pulling them towards the stairs that led to the girls' dorms. "Hurry, or we'll be caught!" she hissed to the others.
The others followed her up quickly, not making a sound, and the head boy arrived in the common room ten seconds too late to see Arabella disappear up the stairs. It was lucky that Lily had thought of charming the stairs, or the seventh one from the door would have creaked something terrible and given them away. Joseph Clayton looked around the room suspiciously before shaking his head and heading back up the stairs- he really ought to get more sleep, now he was hearing things- and he'd thought the O.W.L.s were stressful!
"What do we do now? They can't stay here for the night!" whispered Bella.
"Too right they can't!" Tally agreed.
"James, where's your Invisibility Cloak?" Remus asked him.
"Back in the dorm, why?"
"There's a summoning charm; the forth years were practising it earlier on; do you think you could do it? You're the best of all of us at Charms. The incantation's 'accio'."
"I could try," Lily said, still uncertain. "Accio Invisibility Cloak!" she said as loudly as she dared, pointing her wand towards the boys' side of the tower.
And suddenly, there it was, the expanse of silvery material, floating towards Lily's wand.
"Wow!" James breathed, taking the Cloak from her. "Quite the charmer, aren't you?"
Lily hit him on the arm and glared at him fiercely. "'Thank you, Lily, for summoning my Invisibility Cloak so that I'm not expelled for being in the girls' dorm at night tomorrow. I really appreciate it.' That's okay, James, it was my pleasure!" she half-snapped half-hissed.
"Er, yeah, that. Thanks Lil," James muttered, slightly embarrassed, pulling the Cloak over him, Sirius, Remus and Peter.
The four of them made their way to the door, down the stairs, and into their own dorm.
"Now if you could all turn to page 87 of your Potions text- yes, Mr. Pettigrew?"
"I- I've forgotten by textbook, Professor."
"Just share Miss Black's then. You shall be making the second potion on the page. All ingredients should be in your own collections- yes, Pettigrew?"
"I spilt my ingredients on the way here," he mumbled, not looking up.
"Then you're lucky you only need enough that one person can provide it all, hm? You will pay Miss Black back for half the ingredients you use. Yes, Black?"
"It was my fault Peter spilt his ingredients, sir, I bumped into him by accident."
"If it was just an accident, I thank you for your honesty, Mr. Black. Now, I believe you have a potion to brew?"
Sirius glowered at the Potions teacher, who merely smiled back, unaffected.
"Stupid Corbie, he's head of Slytherin for goodness' sake! Is one detention too much to ask?" he whined to James as they entered the Great Hall for lunch. "Or one measly house point deduction?"
"We'd been trying for four years, never got a single one, even when Marian dropped Armadillo bile on his books. Ate right the way through them," Dorian replied, as though she was seeing it all over again, a slight melancholy smile crossing her lips for the first time since her sisters had been killed. Without another word, or even turning to face the first-years, she joined the Ravenclaw table and began to eat- no meat, though, she was a vegetarian now, and no one sat next to her as the other Ravenclaws trooped into the hall. The first-years looked at each other, unsure of what to do or say.
"You go and eat. I'll join you in a minute," Kerynn told them, and the others nodded and went over to the Gryffindor table, whilst Kerynn went to the Ravenclaw table. After a slight hesitation she sat down next to Dorian, who didn't look up. "Hey."
Dorian jumped and looked up, startled. "Oh... hey..." she said, dropping her gaze again, disinterested.
"Kerynn Stevens."
"Oh."
"Are you okay?"
"Jabberwocky."
"I suppose I deserved that," Kerynn admitted, hiding a slight smile.
"Well, ask a silly question..."
"I know. But if you want to talk about it... I know what it's like to be affected by Dark creatures."
Dorian looked up, interested and sceptical simultaneously. "How?"
"Werewolf encounter. Someone close to me."
"They dead?"
Kerynn looked back at her, their eyes meeting. "No. Not dead. Just scarred."
Dorian's eyes widened. "Oh. Tough break, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Your sister?"
Kerynn hesitated. "Cousin," she said finally, feeling bad about lying but not regretting it.
"Why are you telling me this? You're a first-year, right? And a Gryffindor?"
"Doesn't matter. Just thought you might like to know you're not alone."
"Thanks. Appreciate it," replied Dorian with a wry smile at the small girl next to her, feeling a sudden sense of kinship towards her. "Thanks."
"It's okay," Kerynn said, slightly embarrassed now, unsure whether she'd done the right thing. She stood up, and began to walk over to the Gryffindor table.
"Hey, Kerry- I meant it, okay?"
Kerynn smiled back at her and nodded. "Okay."
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A/N: Not much to say here, except thank you for reading, and I hope you liked it.
Kirina