A/N: Oh yay! I'm glad people like me! I wasn't going to post this because originally there was going to be a lot more to it, and I couldn't be buggered to write the whole thing. But this first part is done and it makes a nice little interlude (I hope!). Also it would be kind of odd to skip from August to Sirius's narration in January! XD So. Yes. Here 'tis. I want to say to aztecgold882 you totally rock my sox, my spleen, and a number of other amusing things! I can't get in touch with you and that makes me sad :( , but you're awesome! (And Australian, which gets you even more bonus points in the big book of people who rock! ) So this chapter is going out to you and your (not you're) grammatical genieness, awesome reviewerness, and being an Aussieness! YAY! w00t! The last chapter, quite frankly, sucked in my opinion, which is why I'm glad people liked it, because I didn't. ( Thanks to everyone who read and/or reviewed you totally made my PMS-ing week. LoL XD! (This is Amethyst first person...again.)
Yours,
The Evil Duck!
Keep reviewin'! XD
(Sirius chapter to come shortly, he's such a pain in the ass! Just try keeping him calm in first person for fifteen nanoseconds and you know why JKR killed him off XD!)
The Child of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black
-Interlude-
September 1975
Letter from Hogwarts
After Sirius left for the school year my life basically returned to normal. School started, and it's as boring as it usually is. I spoke to more people though. I don't know what solicited the sudden change, but it may have something to do with the lunatic currently in Scotland. But I swear if he does this to me one more time, and I mean just one more time, I'm going to have to kill him. Thanks to Sirius I've learned something about owls: they like toast and get very angry when they are deprived it.
It was yesterday, the first Saturday after school started and I was tired. It'd been a long week: I have a full schedule, and Azure's started up the school year competition (where he has to compare his grades, which are always better, to mine), I have three essays yet to do (I haven't even started any of them, now that I think of it), the new accessories for my Kombi came in special from Germany so I've been in the engine most of my spare time, and I'd been to someone's house for the first time (really) since we moved. (Go ahead say it, I'm pathetic, but it's changing.)
Like I said it was yesterday, probably about 6:00 at night, cloudy, blustery, but not all that uncomfortable. I'd just gotten out of the shower and was in my bedroom when I got that weird feeling that I was being watched. Eyes are really funny like that, you can always tell when someone's watching you. Gazes sometimes hurt, or tingle, or bore, or, in the case of Sirius Black, take your breath away and leave you like jelly. You can feel eyes especially when someone is staring, because it feels like they're trying to dig a hole into the back of your neck.
My little eleven year old brother (Flax) has a friend named Linus who's a dirty little Peeping Tom. Since my brothers' and my bathroom shares a common door with my room it's easy to get from the sitting room to my room without much effort. That's why I have a lock on my side of the door. I knew he couldn't have been watching me from my door, and I had locked the bathroom door as well (always do. With four brothers it's something you learn very quickly.) I have no keyholes. It was really unnerving. I looked around for the source of the eyes and, not having found them in my bedroom, I looked to the window, wondering if someone across the street was pulling a Rear Window.
I didn't have to look far as there was a huge, ugly bird hovering just outside my window, using long feathery wings to beat the air. I don't scream. It's not in my nature. I can watch horror movies without so much as a peep, and I don't even jump when people leap out at me. So I didn't make any noise when I saw the owl, just clapped my hands over my mouth and stepped away from the glass. That was when I saw the note tied around...what I guess you could call its neck. It said: Am - let the owl in, he has a letter for you -Sirius.
Of course. Of course the nutter would do this to me. I yanked open the window really quickly then raced back against the door. I never thought I'd be afraid of something so stupid as an owl, and yet, there it was, sitting on my bed, and I was quaking with fear, as far away from it as possible. It had the letter tied around one of its scaly clawed feet. It was going to take a lot of resolve to get the letter. After gaining the nerve, and saying a few prayers, and begging it not to gore me, and having a mental battle with reality, I untied the red ribbon around the leg with my right hand, I had a very large heavy book in my left in case it decided to attack...however an owl can attack. The scroll fell off into my hand.
It started to eat the toast I'd left on my bedside table that morning, and although I originally planned on eating it later when I yelled at the owl it screeched really loudly at me which scared me even more. They really scream, owls, it felt like it shook my room with its voice and I knew that if it kept it up my parents would hear. So I just let it eat.
I opened the letter, this is what it said:
12 September 1975
Dear Amethyst -
I hope the owl didn't scare you too much, I know you aren't used to them. In the wizarding world this is how we send mail, we haven't got postmen, or mailboxes, or whatever else muggles might have. Owls are very intelligent and don't need to be paid (mind, I don't really know if you pay postmen, I'm assuming.) they just need to be fed. You have to send me mail via owl, it's the only way it'll get to me. The owl isn't vicious (nor are any owls really. They're pets, right? I mean they're pets in the wizarding world, but I don't think they are in the muggle world, are they? Oh well. If you're reading this you've probably figured out that it isn't going to hurt you.). So just write your letter, tie it to his leg , feed him, and he'll make it back. I've missed you very much so I've pulled lots of pranks in your honor. I know you're smiling, don't pretend you're not touched.
So far the year has gone fairly well. Filch, the caretaker here who believes in Medieval torture that he must have learned from the Spanish Inquisition, hasn't caught my friends and I yet (he HATES us, hangs us from the ceiling by our wrists, canes the bottoms of our feet, makes us wash off bedpans in the Hospital Wing or the awards spanning back about 1,500 years in the Trophy Room by hand(!), and/or sends us into the Dark Forest on the grounds (also dubbed The Forbidden Forest.) If you get sent in there the survival rate is...less than promising. He loves to see us in pain and calls us "a bunch of wild marauders," which, all-in-all, isn't a bad title.)
Most interesting so far is the fact that our History of Magic Teacher, Professor Binns, has hopped the twig. Don't feel to badly, he was ancient! Died peacefully in front of the staff room fire. Looked almost like he was sleeping. Er...I've just incriminated myself haven't I? Well I didn't do it or anything! (And for the first time in my life I'm saying that truthfully.) James, Remus, Peter, and I found a secret passageway we'd never seen before, 5 years at this bloody school and we're still trying to master the castle. Although, I do think we know more about Hogwarts than anyone else, that includes the teachers and the Headmaster. So, the passage let out in the staff room. We figured he was asleep and went to tiptoe past until Remus realized he wasn't breathing. This is generally a hint that someone has kicked the bucket . We made a mad dash back to Gryffindor Tower (Gryffindor is our house, and the best house in the school. No contest. Hands down.) and waited for Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress, transfiguration teacher, head of Gryffindor House, and strictest bitch on the planet earth who can't take a joke for her life, made the announcement that he'd passed away. Binns is very boring. It is notoriously easy to fall asleep in his class, and that includes when he's talking about the goriest bits of the bloodiest wars. No, I don't mean he WAS boring, I mean he still IS boring. He's dead but his ghost is still teaching us. I know you "don't believe in ghosts," but like I've told you a million times they DO exist. They're just dead people with unfinished business. Pretty uncommon but they are real, we've got loads of them at Hogwarts, one in every house. Gryffindor's got Nearly Headless Nick, he's called this because his name is Nicholas and he's nearly headless.
Just because Filch hasn't caught us doesn't mean we've been good (I don't know the meaning of the word, thank-you-very-much.) In fact we've just begun work on a highly top secret project as well as (hopefully) finishing a potentially life-threatening endeavor. Can't say any more! I may have already said too much.
Now, onto more important business, have you taken my advice? Have you shown the world your beautiful smile? Have you made any friends yet? Spoken up in your classes? I want to know about everyone you meet and all the boys who ask you out. I have to make sure they are worthy of you. I may have to kill a few. But I promise most of them may live. Maybe. How's the VW? Any new motorbikes for yours truly? Old motorbikes? Motorbikes that no one would miss if they suddenly "disappeared"?
The second owl will be carrying a package for you. The chunky chocolate looking things are called Cockroach Clusters, and that isn't just a cute name. Those are for Azure when he's being a bastard or whoever else you may be angry with. The bags labeled "Chocolate Frogs" are milk chocolate, no frogs, and come with collectable wizard cards. I'm just warning you ahead of time, the pictures on the cards move, which I know (and I'm almost completely positive on this one because I've never seen the one's in your house do it) muggle photos don't do.
This may not even reach you as I don't know if owls can find muggle homes and/or he's been hit by an airplane (or something like that. I'm not quite sure if airplanes hit birds, but you understand what I mean. I think.), and/or you didn't let him in. So I might be writing this to no one. If that's the case I should probably stop now as I've just wasted a lot of time. (I'm not sure exactly how long. Too lazy to check these things.) So I'm going to end this letter either to you, Am, or to the atmosphere right now.
Send your reply with the owl,
Always,
Sirius
I am going to kill him.
A/N: (Oh also minor issue notes, I left out a close quotes in the last chapter. No one's pointed that out yet but it's during Sirius's speech about the government. I think it's pretty obvious where it belongs but I'm slow and didn't notice it until about 30 nanoseconds ago. XD! So don't e-mail me on it. 2) Amethyst is talking about finally understanding what 'dumbstruck' means. The period in that sentence should be a comma. Again I apologize and am thinking of sacking my grammar checker Josh XD! 3) there are a few unnecessary spaces and stuff. Whoops. Sorry!) By-the-by I'm sure most people have heard of Rear Window but if you haven't it's an Alfred Hitchcock movie where a guy breaks his leg in a fall and can't leave his apartment so he spends everyday spying through his camera on the family across the street where he thinks he witnesses a man kill his wife. I've never actually seen the movie myself XD!
Please no comments on the suckyness of this chapter. XD! Thanx!
