A Parental Guide

By Miss Willow

A.k.a

xXxFluffy-Pink-Socks

A/N: Chapter. Here. Author's Notes aren't what I'd call uncomfortable; I just don't know what to put here! Sorry guys! Any ideas for what I could put in my author's notes are welcomed.

-x-

"Rosa! Calm down!" Lily tried to reassure me, grabbing me by the arms, "Right, breathe. What happened?!"

It only took those few seconds for my panic to return, "Oh-my-god-Sirius-left-me-and-we-had-an-argument-the-food-the-dinner-won't-be-ready-I-can't-cook-I-hate-Sirius-Black-why-me-I-don't-like-potato-do-you-like-potato-oh-god-oh-god-oh-god-"

"You and Sirius had an argument?" Lily repeated slowly, as if trying to process this information.

"Yes! We had an argument!" I said, losing my patience, "What is so hard to believe about that? We argue everyday!"

"I know, I know, sorry, just don't take your bad mood out on me… look, when did he leave?" Lily asked me in a voice that I was sure she used whenever she talked to pre-school children. I glanced anxiously at my watch.

"About an hour ago-" I guessed. I glanced back up at Lily, who was now staring at me in horror. "What?"

"The one hour rule!"

"The what?" The annoyingly superior look she was giving me was like the thing she knew was the most obvious thing in the world.

"You and Sirius are only allowed to be apart from each other for less than an hour," Lily explained and a siren seemed to go off inside of my head.

"We're dead." I cried, burying my face in my hands and imagining McGonagall's face when she found out that Sirius and I had broken one of the project rules. There was no way she'd give us an A,,, an O… oh, whatever the top mark was!

"You're dead." Lily admitted.

"We're going to get an F!" I wailed.

"Or a T," Lily said.

"A T?" I replied in disbelief.

"Yes. Troll. It's said no-one in the history of Hogwarts has had a piece of homework graded T." Lily informed me intelligently.

"How do you know that?" I asked, bewildered.

"A little thing called Hogwarts: A History," She told me. I laughed; then realised she wasn't joking.

"I really should read that book some time-" I said, concealing my smile.

"-you should." Lily agreed, perfectly serious, half-glaring at me.

"ANYWAY… back onto my nightmare of a life… what am I going to do?!" I said anxiously.

"Rosa?"

"WHAT!"

"You're running your fingers through your hair again…" Lily said, eyeing my offending hand reproachfully.

"AHH!" I yanked my hand away from my head as fast as I could, which turned out to be a big mistake as my hair was a mess of tangles from the raking of my fingers continuously through it. "OW!"

Lily rolled her eyes at me and begun the long process of untangling my fingers from the rebellious, and now tangled, frizz that was my hair. "So what are you going to do?"

"Well, I guess I'll just go on with the dinner without him-"

"The dinner?" Lily raised her eyebrows at me, "You're not honestly still thinking about doing it?"

"Of course I am," I replied, "Duh!"

"Rosa, you need to go and apologise to McGonagall right now! You've broken one of the most important rules of this project. She'll want to know."

"What's the point? I'll be punished either way…"

"Yes but better for you to go and apologise and, to be frank, grovel at her feet for forgiveness about the mistake than to wait for her to come and 'hunt' you down; being forced to look for you all around Hogwarts will only make McGonagall even more mad." Lily said and, although she was lecturing me, I could surprisingly see an ounce of sense in what she was saying.

"Ok, ok, I'll do it," I grumbled. Lily didn't appear convinced. "No, I will. I'll go have a shower, freshen up a little bit so that I can make a better impression and then go to her office and tell her about the dinner-"

"and-"

"-AND the breaking of the rule. Satisfied?" I took her silence as a yes and headed up to the dormitories without another word.

So I had my nice relaxing shower, being sure to use up all of the overly-priced shampoo that Lily had spent weeks saving up and had been stupid enough to leave lying on my bed and all of the hot water. I did feel a teensy bit guilty after doing both of these things, as Lily was now a close friend and she did consider that bottle of shower gel to be one of her most prised possessions and because although I did dislike Sirius very much, I didn't think anyone deserved to have a shower in freezing cold water.

I sat on my bed, drowning in self-pity for what Sirius and Lily would do to me when they found out about my terrible sins. Wait; maybe I wasn't doomed to an eternity of slave labour in hell after being murdered by both Sirius and Lily in turn… maybe they needn't ever find out about the shampoo and the hot water… unless…

I was just contemplating on how I could blame all of the mishaps on James Potter when suddenly there was a loud pop. Yes, a loud pop. I am ashamed to admit that I did scream something along the lines of 'THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END!'' but then so would you when the you're sitting on your bed in your dormitory, wearing a towel, still dripping wet from the shower, when a deafening pop (well, I say pop but it was more like a rumble…) shakes the whole room and the room slowly begins to fade in front of your eyes.

My first thoughts, after my world ending theory, were that I was suffering premature blindness but all such thoughts were abandoned when, suddenly, the room came back into focus; except, I wasn't in my dormitory anymore… I was in an office… oh shit. Things didn't get much worse than standing in the middle of McGonagall's office, creating a large puddle on the floor (NO, I hadn't peed myself!), while the said teacher glared at you from over the top of her desk and Sirius Black fell about in hysterical laughter, after hearing you scream 'the world is ending' at the top of your voice.

There were only two words that could sum up this whole situation… "Fuck me." Hmm… maybe I shouldn't have said them out loud…

-x-

Please R&R!