A Sirius Unicorn

Disclaimer: I own nothing, except the plot and a few OC's you haven't heard of. The world is J.K. Rowling's and a few of my idea's for the Unicorns came from the book, The Unicorn Chronicles, and the movie, The Last Unicorn.

Author's Note: If absolutely anyone out there is reading this, PLEASE REVIEW!

Chapter 8. Guenivere and the Knights

The next day, when the four of them met at breakfast, James informed Athena that they had taken care of Wormtail. At first, she had been terrified that he'd meant they'd hurt Peter, but James gave a hollow laugh at this, and explained that they had given him a lie. Remus had told Wormtail that she had simply been using a polyjuice potion. They assumed that he believed them, because after hearing this, Peter immediately apologized and ran off with some lame excuse of having to go to see Professor Meginis about their upcoming duel. Peter had seemed frightened.

This was a great relief to Athena. She had been worried that Voldemort would now know her whereabouts and her whole mission might have been blown, but if Peter had reported back to Voldemort with the lie, it would only be Wormtail who suffered.

As usual, when Guenivere had come to join them, Remus ran off to the library.

After a while of the four of them talking, James suddenly slapped his head and sprinted off out of the Great Hall.

A bewildered Athena and Guenivere turned to Sirius for an explanation, but all he said was, "James is an airhead. He probably just forgot something. I've been telling him for years to just dye his hair blonde and be done with it. No offense Athena."

"What's wrong with being a blonde?" Athena asked as she noticed Gideon and a boy who looked to be his twin, Fabian, enter the Great Hall and head towards their group.

"Nothing, it's just that sometimes, blondes have been known to act a little ditzy."

"Sirius, you really aren't one to judge ditzyness." Gideon said coming up from behind Sirius and making him jump. He then ignored Sirius's death glare and turning to Athena said, "Hi again, wanted to introduce you to Fabian here." At the mention of his name, Fabian gave a little bow. Guenivere just moaned and put her head down on the table.

Athena, noticing the obvious discomfort of Guenivere and Sirius, said in a neutral voice to the twins, "Ok, we've been introduced. I'll see you guys later." The two shrugged off her coldness and after blowing her goodbye kisses, left the trio in peace.

"This is going to be a long day." Guenivere finally said. Athena and Sirius could only agree.

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It turned out to be a long first week as Athena found. The only exciting thing to happen was the Thursday duel in Professor Meginis's class. That and all the Slytherin's came into the Great Hall Friday morning with neon green highlights. Sirius and James had made good use of the Slytherin's password the night before. Needless to say, McGonagall had not been too thrilled with Hogwart's newest hair stylists and gave each of them detention on Monday evening and twenty points off of her own house. The boys didn't seem to mind though. They gave a deep bow to her as they received their punishments and then turned around and gave the entire student body a bow and a cheeky grin. Many of the Gryffindor students applauded.

The duel had been interesting to say the least. Because Gryffindor and Ravenclaw's were paired up together in NEWT DADA, the twins had been in the class as well. They and the Marauders were always clashing. The duel just gave them a way to do it publicly.

You could have almost seen the sparks fly off the two wizards as James and Fabian went at it. Athena could tell they were both highly skilled duelists. The way they were constantly moving, dodging and firing spells was testament to that. The exciting twenty minute duel ended in a still mate with both James and Fabian bombarda-ed by the other.

The next big duel had been Remus and Gideon. With the Marauder honor at stake, Remus didn't disappoint. Although Gideon was admittedly good at spell work, Remus was a far better duelist, and sure enough, ten minutes into their match, Lupin was holding Gideon's wand after executing a silent Expelliarmus spell.

After that duel came Guenivere and Lily. Both had amazing spell work, and used charms that Athena had never even heard of before. Their battle seemed to last forever, and when Lily finally managed to knock Guen over and snatch her wand, she showed really good-sportsmanship and helped Guenivere up. Both girls were given a standing ovation by the class and an impressed Professor Meginis.

Athena had been nervous when she stepped up onto the dueling platform with Sirius. She didn't want to blow her cover, but she also didn't want to lose!

Sirius had seemed to notice her anxiety and had given her one of his so called "irresistible" smiles. She wasn't sure what it was supposed to be irresistible for, but it did make her relax and smile back. Athena Skydancer thrived on challenge, and this was going to be no exception!

They bowed to each other in respect and then fired off their first hexes. Athena had decided to start with basic spells and work her way up as it became necessary. As it turned out, Sirius was an excellent challenge. Although he couldn't get protegos up fast enough to block her spells, he was quick enough to dodge, and dodge he did. They went on like a cat and mouse for nearly half an hour before Sirius finally got blasted back in an overly zealous immobulus spell. It hit him so hard that he fell off the platform and crashed into the wall.

Athena rushed over to him, impressing several of the students at her effortless jump off the rather tall platform.

"OH MY GOSH SIRIUS! ARE YOU ALRIGHT?" Athena screamed as she held his face in her hands. By this time, most of the students were crowded around the two of them and Professor Meginis was trying to get to them through the mob. Sirius had blearily cracked his eyes open and whispered so only she could hear, "I'll be alright as long as you hold me princess." Athena immediately let him go, but she couldn't hold back a little grin.

When Meginis had finally reached Sirius, who was already struggling to stand and laughing at the blushing Unicorn, Athena had told him, "He's fine Professor. Well, as fine as he'll ever be."

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Their duel had been the talk of the school during the boring weekend. When people weren't making fun of Sirius for losing to a girl, or so they thought, they were asking Athena where she learned to duel like that. Athena would always say, "We had a dueling class at the Salem Academy."

On Sunday, when Athena had gone with Guenivere and a reluctant Remus (she had begged and given filly eyes) to watch the first Gryffindor team practice, tragedy struck. The Gryffindor seeker, Tad Coffin, had attempted to catch the snitch as it did a nose dive. The dive became too steep for Tad to pull out of, and his Cleensweep Seven just couldn't break his fall. He ended up breaking his elbow, which wouldn't have been too bad because Madam Pomphrey can heal bones in a heartbeat, but the fall seemed to have scared Tad so bad, that he told James then and there that he quit. James and the rest of the team begged Tad to reconsider, but he was firm.

During the argument between James and Tad, Sirius had wandered over to where Athena, Guenivere and Remus were sitting.

"Hey guys! How you likin' Quidditch so far 'Thena?" Sirius said, making a face at the injured Seeker.

"It seems like it might be fun."

"Might be? That's it! You. Me. Flying. Right now." Sirius said jumping on his broom and flying over to where Athena sat. She didn't refuse, instead, she hopped on behind him and the two took off. The two smiled as they soared toward the opposite goal posts at the deer-caught-in-headlight looks that adorned Remus and Guenivere's faces as they realized they were now alone in the quiet darkening Quidditch Pitch Stands.

"Think they'll get in trouble for being in the stands all by themselves?" Athena asked as Sirius did an abrupt dive.

He easily pulled out of it and yelled back at her through the wind, "I hope so! Say, Athena-"

"Yea," She said as she snuggled her face into his back to escape the wind.

"You wanna try flying on your own. You don't seem exactly scared up here."

She popped her head up and exclaimed, "Sure! I'd love to!"

So Sirius touched down and ran to the broom shed. He came back with a rickety school broom slung over his shoulder. He handed it to Athena and starting explaining how to handle it.

"Don't worry about it, Padfoot, I saw how you were flying it. I'll be fine." Athena said as she hopped onto the broom and took off, leaving an open mouthed Sirius Black gaping behind.

"That's my kind of Unicorn!" He finally exclaimed when he remembered how to talk.

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Athena was surprised by how natural flying a piece of wood seemed to her. By her second lap, she got bored, so she added some loops and eventually dived as Sirius had done. She waited until she could see Sirius over by the bench about to cover his eyes before she pulled the broom up. It felt good to go so fast, although, she did miss her 'wind-blocker'.

As she passed over the Gryffindor section of the stands the third time, Athena looked down and much to her shock, found Guenivere with Remus's arm around her shoulder. The two were laughing and talking. Go Guen! Athena thought to herself.

When she touched down, Sirius seemed to know what she was smiling about and said, "I want them to tell their children how I was the one responsible for all this!"

"You had some help, remember."

Sirius took the broom from her grip and gave her a small peck on the cheek. Athena blushed at this, especially because it had made her stomach flip.

Sirius just gave a mischievous smirk and whispered, "How could I forget?"