Hello there, fanfiction land! I am quite proud to present this fanfic to all of you. I did not write it; it was written by my genius boyfriend! So, I hope you'll all enjoy it!
I own nothing. Literally. The plot is Matthew's, the characters are J.K. Rowling's, and the title comes from a Panic at the Disco song titled Camisado.
Despite his best efforts to contain them, tears leaked from between the clenched eyes of Sirius Black. He breathed deeply, attempting to control his emotions, and managed to compose himself, a seemingly Herculean task. His eyes then darted to the crumpled letter on the four-poster bed beside him, and nearly succumbed yet again to a flood of tears.
He was alone in his dormitory, which normally housed the four 1st-year boys of Gryffindor Tower, James, Remus, Peter, and himself. James was James Potter himself, only son of one of the only wizarding families as old as his own, albeit a member his family would never have permitted him to associate with had they had any say in the matter. Remus was a pale and sickly boy, whose ailment was as-of-yet unrevealed to the remainder of them. All they knew was that his ailment was chronic and wasn't contagious, which was good enough for Sirius. Peter was the last, and generally kept to himself. Sirius knew nothing about him except his name and the fact that he seemed to be in love with sweets, gnawing on them constantly like a mouse.
None of the other three were present, likely because it was the first weekend of the school year, and they were all outside enjoying the last warming sunshine, which might not last much longer given the rapidly cooling weather that was generally a hallmark of a long and cold autumn. But Sirius could find no joy in the day's weather, not with the knowledge he now had obtained.
Despite his best efforts, his eyes continued to flash back and forth between the letter on his bed and the window, whose light was concealed by an oppressive curtain of red and gold. The curtain rustled in the wind, and Sirius felt a shiver run down his spine as he considered the possibilities of that curtain and the open air beyond. Turning his eyes away from the curtain, he reached out for the letter and opened it again, smoothing the crinkles out over his knee.
Sirius,
Well, I certainly must say, your father and I are very disappointed in you. That is, in fact, a complete understatement. Consider yourself extremely lucky that I didn't think you were worth the cost of a Howler, much less the cost of the inscribed curse your father wanted set upon the letter.
Gryffindor, Sirius? Of all the other houses, you choose the very one that is anathema to our family? I can't say that it surprises me, in all honesty—you are too "noble" for anything else. But I daresay that I had hoped that you were not to be a complete disappointment to your family. I can see now that I was misguided in my hopes.
I can't suppose there's anything to do about it now. At the very least, know that you are not, and very likely will never be, our heir. That honor belongs to your brother Regulus now, since I certainly doubt he will disappoint us as thoroughly as you have. Don't bother coming home for Christmas, or your father and I will hex you right out of the house. We'll let you know if you can return for Easter sometime soon—your father hasn't decided if the ability to hex you is worth having to be around you. Oh, and do try not to befriend any Mudbloods. Gryffindor that you may be, I won't have you turning into a Weasley.
Your Mother
Sirius crumpled the letter up again as his eyes reached its end, and tossed it onto the bed again. He couldn't honestly think of how things could get any worse.
"Hey, Sirius!"
James Potter burst into the dorm, his hair artificially windswept in the style that he had grown to like ever since one of the Gryffindor girls had nearly swooned during Flight Class earlier this week. James had been coming in for a landing, and a gust of wind swept his hair into a tousled twist that made him look like he'd been through a thunderstorm. Coincidentally, the vertigo had caught up with one of their classmates, and she'd fainted. James couldn't be convinced that the two events were unrelated, and had now taken a fancy to swooping his hair into a windswept pattern whenever it was convenient.
Sirius reached up and wiped his eyes quickly before James could fully come into the room. He had pulled the door-facing curtains closed, to hide himself, but if James came more than a few steps in, he would be able to see him. He then grabbed the letter, crumpling it further and shoving it into his pocket. "What do you want, James?"
James hesitated, startled by Sirius' abruptness, but continued into the room, not dissuaded. "I thought I'd see if you wanted to play a game of Quidditch. Ravenclaw first-years think they're better than us and I want to prove 'em wrong. Come on."
"No thanks," Sirius replied, trying very hard to sound disinterested without sounding upset and failing.
James looked at the hunched over figure that Sirius cast and took a step forward, trying to see what was going on. "Come on, Sirius, you'll love it. Besides, you're the best Beater we'd have—there aren't any girls in Gryffindor who can pull it off and seeing Remus or Peter do it would just be cruel and unusual punishment."
Sirius swiveled, glaring at James with eyes glistening with what appeared to be merely anger. "Go screw a hippogriff, James! I'm not interested in beating anything!" he shouted, although his tone seemed to reveal the lie implicit in his words.
James recoiled, taken aback by Sirius' venomous tone. "Okay, okay," he said, raising his eyebrows in concern. "I guess I'll ask a 2nd-year. Means Ravenclaw will get one too…but obviously you don't give a rat's ass about that." He turned and stalked out of the room, perturbed by Sirius' anger, but too pissed off to honestly care much about it.
Which left Sirius alone, looking at a curtain flapping in the breeze. More alone than he had ever been in his life.
"I still don't know why we're talkin' ta him," Ignatius Avery mumbled. "He's a thrice-damned Gryffindor; he's almost as bad as a filthy Mudblood." Avery was a blocky youth, at least two-thirds of his way through puberty already, with a voice that was as deep as the dungeons of Hogwarts.
"Shut up, Avery," Seth Mulciber replied. Mulciber, on the other hand, was thin and scrawny, although he was slowly growing less so each day. His voice cracked as he snapped at Avery, making them polar opposites in more than just intelligence quotients. "We're talking to Sirius because he's not that bad a guy. Not everyone who gets into Gryffindor is a 'noble', 'righteous' 'do-gooder'. My father works under a lousy ex-Gryffindor at the Ministry, and that guy shoves even more misplaced funds into his pockets than my father does. Granted, he's got more room to shove in funds since he's a filthy half-blood living from paycheck to paycheck."
The group surrounding him laughed, and Sirius felt obligated to do the same, laughing half-heartedly at the joke he hadn't found funny. He was sitting out by the lake, surrounded by what appeared to be the popular 1st-year Slytherins: Ignatius Avery, Seth Mulciber, and Severus Snape. In addition, his cousin, the vacuous and blonde Narcissa Black, was a short distance off, allowing her hair to be stroked by her boyfriend, a fellow blond and fellow pureblood named Lucius Malfoy. Sirius had met the 7th year at his 17th birthday party; his coming-of-age. He had been forced to go by his parents, who needed to make sure that they were attending enough pure-blood functions. At the party, Sirius had watched Lucius cast the Imperius Curse upon the Malfoy's Muggle gardener, causing the gardener to unknowingly embarrass himself in the most degrading manner possible and forcing Sirius to leave the party early without his parents' knowledge to keep from either being sick or hexing Lucius.
Sirius would not be attending any more of Lucius Malfoy's parties.
"So how did you end up in Gryffindor, then?" Snape said, a malevolent gleam coming into his eyes. Instantly, Sirius began to hate the slimy youth even more than he already did. He had met the greaseball briefly on the train to Hogwarts, and had quickly taken a dislike to him, alongside James. Then again, James was being incredibly asshole-y, and so his opinion might not be all that pivotal at this point.
Their conflict had escalated over the past few days. James and the other 1st-years had ended up losing the Quidditch match, after the very 2nd-year that James had been forced to recruit accidentally smashed a Bludger right into his leg, breaking it and nearly knocking James off of his broomstick. The game would have been called, except before anyone really knew what had happened, the Ravenclaw 2nd-year had caught the Snitch. James had cursed the ears off the suits of armor all the way to the hospital wing, and they were still complaining about it.
Madame Pomfrey had fixed James' leg by dinner, but that meant only that James was there to complain about the incident, continuingly pointing out that the loss had been entirely Sirius' fault. As the meal progressed, Sirius' face began to grow more and more chiseled, his features hardening with anger. By about the fifth time James mentioned that "the Beater wouldn't have even been playing if Sirius had felt like getting off his ass", Sirius had had enough. So, he threw down his knife and fork, and stormed off, stunning his classmates both because he had left so unexpectedly and because he hadn't hexed James in the process of leaving.
The latter had occurred only because Sirius had stormed off to leave hexes littered around James' four-poster bed. About four hours later, James found himself trapped within his bed by his own sheets, with blisters, boils, and uncontrolled hair growth all over his body. Sirius had inexplicably been in the common room looking for 'something he'd lost' at the time—just close enough so that he could hear James' shouts without having to listen too closely.
Sunday had been even worse. The whole day, the two of them had gone back and forth, leaving spells and hexes littered about each other's traditional haunts. Sirius was proud to note that he only cause two accidental mis-hexes—one of his hexes had knocked a statue over on top of a Hufflepuff prefect, who was too dazed to take away any house points, and the other had dribbled a liter of greenish slime onto the head of a scrawny 2nd year Ravenclaw. James, on the other hand, had caused no less than four instances of collateral damage, one of which was upon Peter; James had jinxed him on his way down from the dormitory, thinking he was Sirius, and had caused him to fall all the way down and nearly into the fireplace.
By this morning, the two of them had settled into simply not speaking to one another, on the suggestion of their roommate Remus Lupin, who had reminded them that sooner or later, one of them was going to get detention. Sirius, at least, had taken the suggestion, and had started to avoid James as much as possible. As such, classes had been even more boring than usual. In Herbology, he'd been partnered with Peter, who'd managed to drip some sort of plant goop all over his school uniform. He'd then been forced to sit through a boring History of Magic lesson smelling funky and sticking to his chair. He skipped lunch to change, and had then gone to transfiguration, where he was now being ignored by everyone: James because he was angry at Sirius, Peter because Sirius was mad at him, and Remus because…well, Remus was just being Remus.
However, Transfiguration was a class that they took with the Slytherins, and so on the way out of class, Seth Mulciber had bumped into him. "Getting along with your slimy Gryffindor friends, I see?"
"Oh, yes," he had replied sarcastically. "We're great chums. I think my favorite is either the git who likes to hex me in the hallways or the idiot who likes to drop plant goo on me." Neither one of those two descriptions was particularly accurate; James was only hexing him because Sirius had started hexing him first, and Peter wasn't quite as stupid as his statement had implied.
Mulciber looked pensive a moment, and then asked, "Why don't you come hang out with some of the guys from my room? Not all that bright, but they're at least better than your dormmates."
Sirius hesitated. The rift between Gryffindor and Slytherin was quite large. It was clearly an incredibly generous gesture for Mulciber to invite him to join them…but, then again, the only reason that Seth was even cordial to him was because their families had been close for years. Truth to be told, the kid could get on his nerves; his ambitions, even at 11, were monumental, and not very altruistic. Sirius also suspected that the same was true for Mulciber as well; he could sense that his streak of selflessness was irksome to Seth at times. But Seth was inviting him to join his friends, whereas the one friend that he'd thought he had was being childish and pushing him away…and he could really use friends at this point.
Over the course of the afternoon by the lake, Sirius had awkwardly hung out with the three Slytherin guys, as well as Lucius and Narcissa when they chose to participate. He quickly came to realize that part of the reason that Mulciber had invited him was pity—Seth, Lucius, and Narcissa had all clearly been informed of his disinheritance, and Snape appeared to know what was going on but not fully understand or care about the act's importance to Sirius' future. Avery was a moron, and knew nothing about it, despite clearly having been told about it.
Regardless, Sirius sat through the afternoon, for two reasons. The first was that hanging out with Mulciber and his crew was comfortable, in the most uncomfortable way possible. Mulciber and he had been friends once, and even if they weren't as close as they had been, they had once been close. James and the Gryffindors, on the other hand, were all symbols of the reasons that he had been disinherited, and while being with them might have been more pleasurable, being with the Slytherins came naturally to him now, after a lifetime of letting their beliefs and practices wash over him, ignoring what he disagreed with.
The second was because they were his only hope at reclaiming what he had lost. His family had abandoned him, his roommates had abandoned him, and now, all he had left were these half-friends, these friends that a worse version of him would gladly become one of. He had no doubt that, were he the son that his parents wanted him to be, he would be one of these Slytherins, outwardly as well as inwardly. But he was not the son that his parents wanted him to be, and, despite himself, he desperately wanted to become that son. So he was talking to these Slytherins, and ignoring the Gryffindors who might actually one day become his friends, because that was what he would have to do if he ever wanted to earn any sort of praise from his parents ever again.
If he wanted to be a part of his family ever again, he would have to deny himself, and become a Slytherin-tagalong, or, at the very least, attempt to separate himself from his own House as much as possible for the next seven years. It seemed a Herculean feat, and it likely would be…but he didn't know what else to do.
He still hadn't answered the loathsome Snape's question, and turned a piercing gaze onto the greaseball. "Sorting Hat told me Gryffindor, idiot, what was I supposed to do?"
"Umm…I don't know…" Snape replied, rolling his eyes. "Not want to be in Gryffindor, perhaps?"
"I tried that," Sirius responded angrily, causing Mulciber to raise an eyebrow. "But the damn hat overruled me. Something about 'denying myself what I need'. Load of rubbish if I ever heard it."
The truly odd thing was, Sirius wasn't lying, sort of. Yes, he was lying about exactly what the hat had said, but the general idea was the same: the hat had refused to put him in Slytherin. The hat had pondered his case for a few moments, and then stated aloud (or, as it turned out, just in his head) that he wasn't going to be a Slytherin, that was for certain. "There are some, you know, who don't want to be Slytherins, but could be," the hat had told him. "But you're not one of them. Ambitious, maybe, but ambition alone can't make a Slytherin. You have to be incredibly cutthroat, at the very least, and ruthless, if at all possible. The closest you'll ever get is cunning, and you won't bend your crafty mind to a cause that your moral compass doesn't swing to."
"But where to send you then…you would do incredibly well in Hufflepuff, as you are loyal to a fault, and Ravenclaw would be lucky to have a mind that works in the crafty way yours does. But your excellence amongst your peers might lead to resentment within the former, and the latter would surely scorn your mind as illogical and hence that of a fool."
"But Gryffindor," and here his heart had sped up, spurred by the fear of rejection and his unconscious thrill, "Gryffindor you would thrive in. Your lack of respect for authority could find guidance there, and your noble soul would remain untainted by any outside influence there. Yet I remain uncertain…your choice is a difficult one…"
"Gryffindor!" his heart screamed out silently, overwhelming his brain's panicked denials.
"If you insist…" the Sorting Hat had responded, its voice sounding as if its imaginary lips had curled into a smile.
"Gryffindor!" the hat cried aloud, surprising a great number of the pure-bloods in the audience. Sirius had visibly shook as he removed the hat and walked to the clapping Gryffindor table, barely daring to look at Mulciber, who looked as if he had just been hit by a broomstick.
But then his eyes slid over to James Potter, the kid that he had sat next to on the train, who was smiling and giving him a thumbs-up. And for some reason, he had stopped shaking, smiled, and taken a seat at the table of Gryffindor House.
He hadn't regretted the moment or his decision until now.
"Well, at least you are hanging out with us now," Mulciber said, "Even though you don't go to classes with us or anything."
"Trust me," Narcissa said, deigning to join the conversation. "You don't want to be in class with him. Or hang out with him, for that matter, the noble little brat."
Sirius raised his eyebrows in disgust. "I'm right here, Narcissa. You could at least wait until I've left, or at least until I turn my head a bit."
"I don't see why," Lucius responded. "It's not like either Narcissa or I care about your opinion of us, especially since you're a Gryffindor in fact as well as in deed."
Sirius glared at Lucius, who ignored his gaze and resumed stroking Narcissa's hair. He really loathed Lucius Malfoy.
The remainder of the afternoon was meaningless to Sirius. He nodded as Mulciber spoke, said something on occasion, and laughed on occasion, when he was socially required to do so. But it wasn't the most thrilling experience of his life; in fact, he was glad the instant that the dinner bell rang and he could escape. He sat at the Gryffindor table, uncomforted by their apathy towards him, and yet glad to be there, an irony he could not fully appreciate. That night, he went to bed early, tormented by his feelings of confusion and inadequacy. He knew that it would be a long night ahead of him—and he did not look forward to the morning.
The next day dawned, light shimmering through the curtains to reveal Sirius lying in his bed, finally having drifted off to sleep after a long night. As the sun rose, the light began to reveal the details that told the tale of his night: the unnatural positions of his arms and legs, the twisted and discarded covers of his bed, the tousled hair, and the tear-stained pillow. Soon, the teenager stirred, the light penetrating through his eyelids and rousing him. He rolled over, muttering to himself, and attempted to fall asleep again.
He was too late. Within moments, his alarm began to ring, bouncing away from his hand's attempts at forcibly silencing it. Finally, Sirius rolled over and sat up, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and getting out of bed, the alarm silencing as he did so. "Dumb magical alarm clock," he muttered, stumbling over to the adjoining shower.
Within an hour or so, he was on his way to his morning classes, History of Magic and Herbology, both of which he nearly slept through. Again, no one was speaking to him, and so the classes were made even more unbearable. Much more of this and he was going to snap. He hoped that if he went insane it happened in Herbology—the vines they were watering this week would be easy to strangle James with.
After lunch, Sirius headed to Defense Against the Dark Arts sandwiched between his fellow Gryffindors, all of whom ignored him further. As they filed into the classroom, Sirius spotted Mulciber chatting with Snape, and recalled the former's suggestion from yesterday, that they hang out sometime. Why not here, as long as they had class together?
During their mixed classes, Gryffindors generally took the right side of the classroom and Slytherins took the left, leaving several seats in the middle as buffer zones if they could. However, Sirius ignored this invisible barrier and took a seat next to Mulciber, not only crossing the invisible line between the two houses, but seating himself left of center. He could hear one of the more dramatic Gryffindor girls gasp—she was destined to write for a gossip column in the Prophet one day, at this rate.
"Hey, Mulciber. Mind if I sit with you guys during class?" he asked quietly. Mulciber's face revealed his surprise; clearly his suggestion had been mostly just politeness, and not intended for implementation during classes.
But his admiration of Sirius' bravado clearly won out over his shock, and he nodded. "Go for it," he responded. "Means I won't have to sit next to that dunce Avery at least. I cannot believe that we hang out with that guy."
Mulciber had probably not intended his use of "we" to include Sirius. But he could have, and even the suggestion of being included by anyone yet again made Sirius smile, despite the fact that his minor joy was probably all in his head.
Moments later, Professor Azizi, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher this year, entered the room. Professor Azizi was on loan from some Arabian magical academy for the year, since the previous year's Defense teacher had developed severe claustrophobia after a curse he had been demonstrating for a group of 6th years backfired on him, or so the prefect that had escorted him to Gryffindor Tower had told them. At any rate, Azizi was a tall man who revealed a bit of pudginess when his robes were tied too tightly, who wore an austere turban of black, white, or tan at all times and had a curly black beard. Sirius presumed that he had black hair beneath the turban, but its confines had never been revealed to him, so presume was all he could do.
"Hello, students," Azizi said, his Arabian accent readily apparent amidst a school of Englishmen. "As I promised last week, today I shall show you all the djinn that I captured many years ago in the vast deserts of Egypt. I had intended to show it to you during your individual classes, but thanks to the 'wonders' of English owl post–" (the professor had a venomous hatred of owl post, as he had already informed the class at least three hundred times, and felt that messages should be sent via magical teleportation, and had been working on a spell to that effect for years, apparently) "it did not arrive until yesterday, and I nearly had to reseal the being within a new protective receptacle.
"Now, before I unseal the being, are there any questions about djinni? Perhaps from the Muggles out there?" The professor was clearly not known for his tact. At least he wasn't prejudiced against his Muggle students.
The same could not be said for Mulciber. "For the love of magic," he muttered at Sirius under his breath, "get on with it already. Some of us want to see the damn thing. The Mudbloods'll figure it out eventually."
"You'd think they'd hire decent teachers in this place," Sirius said, doing his best to sound as if he agreed with Seth. "This one just wants to play with his prized catch."
"A djinn is a powerful spirit," Professor Azizi said, his words cutting through Sirius and Mulciber's whispered conversation. "It is very similar to a ghost in form, but it is not the soul of a former living person. You will notice when I release the djinn from his prison that he will appear to be lit up from the inside, as if there was a tiny light bulb illuminating him. This is due to his fiery nature; the djinn is a fire spirit.
"I am sure that many of you Muggles are confused to see a decorative vase such as this one. Were you, perhaps, expecting a crude oil lamp?" Azizi laughed, a wheezing chuckle that made Sirius raise his eyebrows. "In all actuality, an oil lamp, regardless of whatever the legend of Aladdin tells you, is a quite bad choice for the containment of djinni. It requires magical sealing of the container, because of the open hole, and is thus much harder to pull off. However, the one benefit of such a confinement is that the genie cannot be accidentally freed, as he could from most imprisonments. The specific code word or gesture must be made, or he remains imprisoned.
"This vase, however, is sealed only by this cork I have placed over the lid, and all I must do to release the djinn is remove it." As he spoke, Azizi did so, and a wispy, glowing being emerged from the vase.
The djinn was dressed in a vest and a turban, the latter of which was very similar to the one Azizi himself was wearing. He was human-like to the torso, at which point his body grew ethereal, becoming a curlicue that spiraled into the opened vase. The djinn looked around almost eagerly at the faces surrounding him, but grew upset when his gaze finally turned to Azizi. "Oh," the djinn said, his voice thunderous yet quiet. "You again. Here I was hoping that you were going to die and leave me in peace soon."
Azizi laughed again, and this time, Sirius laughed along with him. "Even the djinn hates this guy," he whispered not-so-quietly to Mulciber.
"Are you honestly surprised?" Mulciber whispered back. "It's only been one week and I already hate this guy. The djinn's probably been dragged out of his vase a dozen and a half times by this guy. Probably more than that."
"Yes, Rahem, it is I, Farid Azizi," the professor said, finally recovering from his bout of laughter. "I have released you to display you to yet another class of innocents."
The djinn, Rahem, looked over the students, smug as only an immortal being could be. "The infants need more sun. They look more ghostly than I."
"They are British," Azizi responded. "They do not see as much sun as those students that you are normally exposed to, Rahem."
"I thought it felt inhumanely cold for some reason. Figures that you would continue to torture me by bringing me to Britain, of all places." The djinn clearly didn't enjoy being imprisoned by Azizi.
Azizi laughed again, obviously not realizing his captive's disdain was truthful and not affected. "Forgive Rahem. He and I have been with each other for almost 20 years now, and a bit of wordplay is customary between friends such as us."
"With friends like that, who needs enemies?" Mulciber asked. Sirius laughed, but couldn't help but turn the statement back on Mulciber himself. He shifted in his seat a little to look back at James, who sat between Remus and Peter, and was clearly having a good time mocking the professor. All of a sudden, he was gripped by the sudden urge to get out of his seat and go over to them, but resisted it, turning back to the djinn.
"Now, this is not the normal procedure should you find a djinn," the professor was now saying. "If any of you were to find a djinn in some sort of container and release it, the djinn would be bound to you, and forced to grant you a wish of some kind. The wish varies based on the power of the djinn; I have known one man who found a djinn that granted him five wishes, and another whose djinn granted him his favorite food. Rahem here is a bit higher than average, and is about as strong as most single-wish djinni get.
"Upon releasing Rahem from his protective vase, he would grant you your heart's desire."
The professor continued talking, but Sirius heard nothing. Through his mind flashed only one image: the crumpled letter hidden in the bottom drawer of his dresser. Within instants, he had resolved to do what seemed impossible.
He was going to steal the djinn from Professor Azizi.
The drive to steal Professor Azizi's djinn had consumed Sirius. All thoughts of his friendlessness were driven from his mind. James' avoidance of him was a small worry in the back of his mind, and he was not going to take heed of it now. All that mattered was the djinn.
Within a day or so, he had worked out his plan. After class on Tuesday, Sirius had seen Azizi place the decorative vase on his desk in his classroom, presumably so he did not have to take it out of his office every time he wanted to show it off to his students. However, at the end of class, the professor had hinted that the djinn would not be remaining there long; the last class he was showing it to met on Friday afternoon. That meant that Sirius had to get it Thursday night, so that he wouldn't put it in his office after that Friday class.
Sirius' plan hinged on Azizi's naïveté and hubris; in his thinking that no one would even consider stealing the djinn. He had not seen Azizi put any charm on the vase after their class, and theirs was Azizi's last class of the day. He could have put it on after dinner, he supposed, but what would the point have been when he could have done so earlier?
Thus, there couldn't be a spell on it—not only would that be incredibly improbable, it would ruin Sirius' chance of getting the djinn. So he dismissed the possibility, focusing instead on how to make his plan successful.
His only concern now was getting around the castle without getting caught by the ancient and ruthless Apollyon Pringle. Apollyon was the Hogwarts caretaker, and allegedly lurked the halls at night, seeking out any wrongdoers. Sirius had seen him once, in the halls, confiscating some sort of contraband from a burly sixth-year. The sixth-year had been begging for his life. Sirius would have suspected that the sixth year was being melodramatic, except that he had seen him the next day with a mass of purpling bruises across his face and arms, and likely more beneath his robes. He dreaded what Apollyon would do if he was caught sneaking around after dark.
He would just have to chance it, however. There was no way he could track Apollyon's movements, but luckily, the old caretaker liked to mutter to himself as he wandered the castle. He would just have to hope that he muttered loudly enough that Sirius could hear him before it was too late.
His plan made and resolve strengthened, Sirius began to ready himself in his room on Thursday evening. His wand, of course, would have to be brought. Sirius knew few spells of consequence, but randomly flailing with his wand would be effective in the tightest pinch, and those spells he did know would be helpful. Other than that, he didn't have much that would help him get in or get back—except sheer luck and blind willpower.
He looked at the clock on the wall—eleven o'clock. There was no excuse to dilly-dally now. It would take him a while to get to Azizi's room, and the professor was probably in his private rooms or even asleep by this point. It was now or never.
He rolled out of his four-poster bed, breaking the illusionary sleep he had been faking since about 9:30. James, Peter, and Remus had all come to bed since, and none of them had even said a word to his apparently asleep self, which was helpful and hurtful all at the same time. They wouldn't notice him leaving…but Sirius couldn't help but wish that one of them cared enough to pay attention to him.
Sirius crept towards the exit of the dormitory, walking slowly mostly for cautionary, rather than stealthy reasons; it was too dark to see clearly. Thus, he wasn't overly concerned about making noise, and it seemed inevitable that one of his roommates would awaken.
"Sirius? Is that you?"
James' sleepy voice petrified Sirius, who turned slowly to see James sitting up in bed, looking at him through squinted eyes. The irritation and anger that had been fermenting over the last few days boiled over, and Sirius' eyes squinted back in anger. "What do you want, Potter?"
"What are you doing, Sirius?" James said, ignoring Sirius' question. "It's...well it's late at least, whatever time it is. Where are you going…and what's wrong with you lately?"
Sirius was taken aback by the directness of James' question. "Finally decided to pay attention to me, James? And here I thought you were going to ignore me for the next seven years."
"Ignore you?" James sounded seriously offended. "Sirius, you're the one ignoring me! You blew me off last weekend, then started jinxing me all of a sudden for no apparent reason! And I can't tell you how many times I've tried to get you to talk to us at dinner or during classes, but you'd apparently just rather be sulky. So don't you try to tell me that I'm ignoring you—it's you who's causing the problem here!"
James and Sirius had started their conversation at the level of a whisper, but with his last words, James' voice escalated into a near shout, which caused Remus to shift in his sleep, muttering something. The motion made both James and Sirius freeze a moment, first in shock, then resolving into a glare at each other.
Sirius was the first to speak again. "You have no idea what I am dealing with right now, James," he hissed, keeping his voice low.
"You're right, Sirius," James replied, keeping his retort nearly under his breath. "I don't. Because you won't tell me. You're too busy clinging onto those slimy Slytherins. None of them are your friends, Sirius. Even now, you and I are closer than you and them will ever be—because you're not like them, Sirius. They don't care about their friends—but you and I would die for them. That's why we're in Gryffindor and they're not."
"At this point," Sirius said, trying to keep the memories of his disinheritance from his mind and failing, "I'd rather be dead than be in Gryffindor with you."
He remained a moment, to see the crestfallen expression of betrayal on James' face, and then left, slipping through the exit with a sweep of his pitch-black robes.
The dark corridors of Hogwarts mirrored Sirius' mood as he slunk along the fifth floor hallway that led to Azizi's classroom. He had thus far made it successfully out of Gryffindor Tower, and down the two flights of stairs necessary to reach the classroom. He hadn't had any major crisis yet, although the suits of armor on the sixth floor landing had started to rattle as he passed, probably preparing to break out into four-part harmony, as they commonly did. However, he'd managed to slip by quickly, and was now nearly at his goal.
Up ahead, he could see the wooden doorway to the classroom. In his way was a four-way intersection, one that was normally incredibly packed during the school day. Now, it was occupied only by candlelight and shadows, moving only due to the flickers of the candle flames. No danger openly lurked in the hall, but Sirius couldn't help but worry that Apollyon Pringle was hidden behind one of the corners, waiting to jump out and reveal himself.
Irrational, he knew, but the fear remained. He crept closer to the intersection, staying close to the wall and peeking down the one corridor he could see, the one on the left. Nothing. That left only the one to his right, the one that his back was facing. He prepared to cross to the other side of the hall and peek down it, but he heard a sudden noise and stopped dead in his tracks. If Apollyon Pringle was around the corner, his goose was cooked.
Creeping closer and closer to the corner, Sirius readied himself, and lifted his wand into a ready position. He was now ready to whip around the corner and randomly flail his wand at anything that might be there. For all the good that it would do him.
Taking a deep breath, he rolled around the corner, and raised his wand to strike.
Candlelight and an open window greeted him, and he let his wand arm relax. Nothing but an open window and the breeze. He was going to have to break that window in the morning, just out of spite.
With no danger left, unless someone would creep up on him unexpectedly from around a corner, Sirius confidently continued through the intersection, reaching the doorway to Azizi's classroom and slowly opening it.
The classroom was deserted and dark, with only slivers of the crescent moon to light his way. Creeping into the room, Sirius left the door slightly ajar, so that he wouldn't have to worry about opening it with the decorative vase in his hands. He planned on taking the vase now, and opening it later, once he had reached another floor and/or a bathroom, where he would be at least a moderate amount safer.
His objective now in sight, Sirius approached the djinn's protective container, which was placed where it had been this afternoon, on the professor's desk. Without any more fears, Sirius reached out, took the vase by its two curled handles, and lifted it off the desk.
Which caused a cacophonous menagerie of bells, whistles, and sirens to sound, nearly giving Sirius a heart attack and surely awakening Professor Azizi, if not the remainder of the school.
Sirius' heart sunk. An alarm system. He hadn't honestly considered the possibility that Azizi might have booby trapped the vase, but now, it seemed totally obvious. How many djinni were in the world? How rare was it to have one in your possession? In retrospect, it was completely idiotic for Azizi to have not set up an alarm of some sort.
Sirius banished his panicked thoughts and ran, taking the vase with him. It awkwardly fit under his arm, and he held it like an irregularly-sized Quaffle, barreling up the steps of the classroom and out the door that he had miraculously chosen to leave ajar. As he burst through, he could hear Azizi's screams, which sounded as if they were coming from a far off tunnel, but were likely coming from only the stairway to his private chambers. The professor was right behind him.
And who knew what was in front of him? Rushing through the intersection he had lingered at only moments before, Sirius realized that he really didn't have any time to think about what else could go wrong, since nothing else needed to. If he didn't escape, he could be expelled from Hogwarts—an even deeper mark against him in his family's book.
He found the stairs to the sixth floor, mercifully encountering no one on the way, and ran right past them. Even in his panicked state, he had enough presence of mind to realize that Azizi would expect him to take the closest escape route, so the best plan of action was to skip the best route. In his time at Hogwarts, he hadn't learned a lot about the castle's secret passages, but he did know where most of the regular passages were, and where they went.
At the very least, he knew for a fact that there was a small staircase just down the hall and to the left, which would lead to the fourth floor. It was sort of counterproductive to go down to get up, but he also knew that there was a nearby spiral staircase that would go from at least the third floor to the sixth, automatically; he had used it to get to Transfiguration when he was late the other day, and it had actually gotten him there on time. It wasn't a large stretch of the imagination that it would take him to the seventh floor as well, and even if it didn't, he could hide out in it until the alarms stopped or go to the seventh floor from the sixth floor. Much smarter than just hustling up the steps.
Sirius quickly implemented his plan, rushing down the descending stairs, hoping that his panicked footsteps would sound as if they were coming from the larger ascending stairs. The sound of Azizi's feet and shouts began to fade as he descended, and for a short, beautiful instant, he thought that his plan might have actually been successful.
And then he tripped on the last stair.
It was completely ridiculous, he thought as he fell, that he made it this far only to fail now, in the most humiliating way possible. The vase slipped from his hands, and he felt his heart sink down to the first floor below. It seemed inevitable that the vase would break, and yet he hoped and prayed that it would not be so.
Unfortunately, it was to be so. The vase splintered into a million pieces, and smoke began to pour out of it, filling the area around the vase's shards. Looking up in part awe and part horror, Sirius watched as the djinn began to coalesce in the air before him.
"I am free!" the djinn cried, his arms stretching out and appearing to fill with an internal fire, as did the remainder of his body. "I am free, and shall never have to listen to that boor Farid again!"
As he watched the djinn gloat in his glee, a thought came to Sirius, one he quickly vocalized as he scrambled to his feet. "You! Djinn! I have released you from your prison, and you must now grant me my heart's desire!"
The djinn looked down, noticing him for what appeared to be the first time, and let out a hearty belly laugh. "Do not presume to order me around, infant. I have been imprisoned since before you were born, and I am in no mood to follow orders from anyone, much less a fool like you."
"But you must!" Sirius said, nearly begging at this point. "Please! I need you to make my family accept me again! I need you to make them stop hating me!"
The djinn laughed. "You are a bigger fool than I thought. I can see your essence, Sirius Black." The words startled Sirius—he hadn't realized that the djinn would instantly know so much about him, even his name. "Your family shall never love you. You shall be the most hated member of your clan, and shall fail to gain their affections, no matter how hard you try."
The djinn's words were like a physical blow, and Sirius sank to his knees. "No…" he said, tears brimming in his eyes again. "No…this can't be true! Please! You have to grant my wish! Please!"
The djinn merely laughed, and then flew off, growing brighter as he flew down the halls, and causing tumult in his wake. Behind him, a boy just short of manhood lay in a crumpled heap, more alone than he had ever felt, weeping as he never would again.
That's all for now! The conclusion will be posted in a one shot called Take the Fight From the Kid.
Thanks for reading!