Chapter 6
The following weekend after taking care of her homework Marianne sat on both days on her special place beside the Black Lake and played on her guitar. On both days the black haired Gryffindor joined her and listened quietly, which was quite untypical for the outgoing Marauder as far as the blonde girl was aware but Marianne tried not to read too much into his actions and just enjoyed their encounters. Their meetings had a strangely soothing quality on both of them.
To compensate for his silence Marianne babbled between her songs, be it about the reason why she was playing at this place or about her subjects and the professors. At their last meeting Marianne had made her distress known about how Slughorn treated her overly familiar. As a result the good professor had found himself pranked at the breakfast table on Monday morning after Sirius' and Marianne's meeting. The blonde witch couldn't stop the smile that had fixated itself on her face for the rest of the day. She had also taken note of the self satisfied look of the oldest Black son wore when he quickly glanced at her during breakfast.
On said Monday their luck with the weather also abruptly disappeared, with the beginning of the new week it started raining cats and dogs and the temperature dropped rapidly; autumn had finally arrived at Hogwarts.
Sirius Interlude
Sirius didn't show it openly but he was sulking, the bad weather had taken away any chances of listening to his Hufflepuff girl play at the Black Lake. He had quite enjoyed it when she had played for him and her babblings between the songs hadn't taken away from his relaxed state, quite to contrary he had felt amused and quite a bit charmed by her awkward ramblings until she had decided what to play next. That Slughorn made her uncomfortable had annoyed him and so he had convinced his fellow Marauder's to use him as their next prank victim. Who was he to deny her this kind of revenge? Of course he hadn't breathed a word about the fact that he was doing this for a girl, a Hufflepuff at that, he would never hear the end of it if he did.
But back to his foul mood, his obvious state of unhappiness had taken on a stage in which everybody could clearly see it. Most of his fellow Gryffindors attributed it to the weather change but a few exceptions like James and Remus knew better and watched him concernedly. They were aware that bad weather normally didn't provoke such a drastic mood change in him but they refrained from approaching Sirius, they knew better then to disturb him when he was brooding like this. The Black could get quite nasty if you caught him at a wrong time.
His bad mood continued and got steadily worse instead of disappearing, his contributions to pranks got down right vicious until a few days later when he saw Marianne again. She was playing her guitar in one of the abandoned classrooms near the library when Sirius passed it. The Black instantly recognized her music and kept her company until shortly before lunch instead of checking a few facts for their next prank.
The following day when he revisited the classroom in hopes of seeing her again, he found the room pelted with chalk and other small objects. It seemed like Peeves had found Marianne's hiding place. Frustrated and swearing vengeance against the poltergeist Sirius left again in direction of the Gryffindor common room.
When Wednesday of the following week came around the Black finally had found a solution. Determined to keep the intriguing Hufflepuff close, Sirius started to search for a permanent room in which they could meet up. After running around the whole day like a madman, he finally found what he was looking for shortly before dinner.
On the second floor, halfway between both Gryffindor and Hufflepuff dormitories was a deserted hallway with empty classrooms. One of those classrooms had adjourning private quarters. Sirius knew he had hit the jackpot with the private quarters, the rooms were close to both common rooms and slightly out of the way of the normal traffic of Hogwarts, furthermore the living quarters were protected through an empty and dusty classroom, anybody who stumbled inside accidently would be distracted from the other rooms by the clearly dusty classroom. After another glance around Sirius nodded satisfied to himself, with a few well placed privacy charms nobody would give the closed door beside the blackboard a second glance without precisely knowing what was behind it.
The private quarters consisted of a sitting room, a bathroom and two other rooms, both rooms with windows to the Black Lake. With a few quick household charms from the arsenal that his dear mother had drilled into his head since he could walk, Sirius had removed the dust and stood now inside the living quarters room, unsure how to proceed. With a careless shrug of his shoulders he made his way back to the Gryffindor common room, he would show the rooms to Marianne tomorrow and then decide what to do with them. Being slightly obvious Sirius didn't pick up on the fact that this could be easily perceived as him creating a love nest.
On the next day the black haired Gryffindor impatiently waited until classes were over and then after a quick glance at the Marauders map he grabbed Marianne after lunch. Said Hufflepuff had been on her way to the library when she had been more or less kidnapped by the older boy. Without another word Sirius led her away from the more populated corridors of Hogwarts, into the second floor and then into the empty quarters.
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Catching her breath Marianne finally found air to speak, her head still spun from the surprise attack the Gryffindor had sprung on her. She did not even have time to ask questions about where they were going until they had arrived in what looked like a recently cleaned but empty room. Wide eyed and slightly confused she turned to a beaming Sirius who watched her take her surroundings in.
"Do you like it? You can play here as much as you want, and don't have to fear about disrupting anything, plus I can listen to you again without putting the Hufflepuff common room into a panic." the last part was said decidedly smug while he watched her face.
Ugh yeah she could remember that incident when a besotted fellow Puff had invited the Marauders and how even weeks later after the visit, pranks had been triggered by unsuspecting students. Marianne couldn't stop the eye roll and light twitching of her lips while she inspected the room a bit closer. It must have been a former teaching quarter because she saw the doors leading to a bathroom and two other rooms; now really smiling she turned to the Marauder.
"It's amazing Sirius, thank you!" Marianne said happily and secretly quite amused as she saw how Sirius preened at her words, he was just like an overgrown puppy! But she really was thankful for his consideration; it had been getting tedious to find a place where she could play without distractions.
"The only problem is the furniture, of course we could transfigure something but that wouldn't hold long enough or wouldn't be comfortable,…" he said slightly frustrated.
Making a split second decision, Marianne giggled and said, "I know where we can find furniture." and took his hand and led him up to the seventh floor to the room of requirement, it was one of the first things she had explored after arriving at the castle.
Sirius Interlude
Sirius was kind of baffled as he watched the younger girl walk up and down the corridor until a door materialized in front of her. She seemed so shy most of the time but the way she had taken his hand and led him to this place had been downright bold. He grinned slightly, she was getting more and more interesting with each encounter. He then followed Marianne into the hidden room before them that he had no idea it existed.
Behind the door lay the most amazing room he had ever seen. Tables, couches, mirrors, tableware, cloths, everything that normally furnished a house had been stacked in giant piles, with small narrow walks between them. For the first time in a very long time Sirius was completely speechless as he followed the blonde girl into this surreal room.
"I,… what, what is this room?" he stammered while he looked up to stare at the piles that nearly reached the ceiling.
Marianne had a slight smile on her face, "This, is the room of requirement, or the come and go room as the houseelves call it. You walk three times before the hidden door and think about what you want and the room appears like you have imagined it. At the moment everything that was lost in Hogwarts is in this room. Astonishing isn't it?" and with that Marianne made her way to the first pile of couches and asked Sirius, "See anything you like?".
Sirius just shook his head and started to laugh before he said, "THIS, is bloody amazing!" and then looked at the different couches critically, "Hhm, I would say the black leather couch looks comfortable, what do you think?"
The blonde Hufflepuff just nodded and sent a shrinking charm at the piece before pocketing it into her book bag. Grinning Sirius took her by the hand and led her to the next pile, where they selected two beautiful black and comfortable looking armchairs that would match the sofa. Those were followed by an antic glass coffee table with lion feet, a red fluffy carpet, yellow checkered giant blankets, a few silver candleholders as well as some cabinets and bookshelves just for the hell of it.
Sirius had a lot of fun while deciding how to furnish their hideaway, he discovered that Marianne was sweet and really quite playful after she got over her shyness and she too looked like she enjoyed herself. On his insistence they also got a giant double bed for the bedroom, funnily enough Sirius hadn't thought more practical this time instead of with his second head. The Marauder had been thinking about the nights that he sometimes had to sleep outside of the common room because the teacher patrol had been increased and he couldn't enter the common room without being caught.
To be fair he had let Marianne decide how to furnish the last room. He was surprised when she started to pick outdated but still functional cauldrons and potion laboratory furnishing. Curious he asked her about this and she shyly told him that she enjoyed experimenting with potions quite a bit but didn't want to ask Slughorn for additional lab time for her experiments because as she had mentioned before she felt uncomfortable about the big fuss he made about her talent and secondly because the rooms were in the dungeons. Dungeons were Slytherin territory and she wouldn't want to be caught down there alone. Being one of Slughorn's favorite wouldn't help her one bit if a Slytherin decided to attack or 'play' with her.
Sirius nodded at that sensible, unfortunately this behavior was common sense nowadays, at least for people who either disliked confrontation or would be outmatched by the more vicious snakes. The Wizarding world was close to a civil war right now and the conflict had long since reached Hogwarts and was settled in abandoned corridors and classrooms far away from the watchful eyes of the teachers. The Slytherins were also trying to intimidate the other students to go along with their program more and more often in the open. Sirius himself was right in the middle of said conflict with being seen as a blood traitor for not buying the crap about Pureblood supremacy. The eldest Black son was lucky enough to be magically and physically powerful and that he had good friends with similar abilities that were watching his back when they had an encounter with the house of Snakes.
From what he had seen until now Marianne wasn't one to seek confrontation and conflict. No she seemed too shy for that and being a half-blood didn't make her case any better. The Slytherins would eat her for breakfast if she was ever caught alone by them. Surprisingly an unnatural strong wave of fury cursed through his body. Sirius was surprised by his own behavior; of course he didn't like it when fellow students were picked on only because of their blood status but outright rage? He hadn't even felt that strongly when former bed partners of his were attacked because of their blood status. Something about Marianne Abbott let his protective instincts run completely haywire and strangely enough it didn't bother him one bit.
Sirius mulled over these feelings, Marianne was two years younger and very shy; she would need better protection if the situation in Hogwarts got even worse. Coming to this conclusion his eyes wandered back to the Hufflepuff who was fluttering between the different stacks of furniture and was now picking out towels for the bathroom. He watched her as sheput still sealed bottles of shampoo and conditioner into her shoulder bag. The younger witch hummed a happy tune under her breath while she picked through some books lying around with a curious and happy smile. Then and there Sirius decided that no, he really wasn't bothered by feeling protective over the small blonde before him even if it didn't fit into his bad boy image and he would make sure that she was out of the reach of the Slytherins.
Marianne had fun while she 'shopped' with Sirius; he had a surprisingly good taste. She had feared that he would only choose red and gold furniture for the quarters and turn stubborn when argued with but no he had kept to the tasteful stuff and only chose one red piece for the living room, a beautiful crimson carpet. To be honest the double bed had thrown her slightly of kilter but she had decided to wait and see if Sirius tried something before accusing him of anything untoward. After all she had promised herself not to be talked into anything with the infamous Marauder, no matter how big her crush was, the heart ache really wasn't worth it. And so she also shrunk bed linen in dark blue and white for the double bed as well as two bedside tables and a wardrobe for shits and giggles. They had spent nearly an hour in the RoR and slowly made their way back to the second floor, after all they could come back anytime.
Back on the second floor Sirius watched relaxed while Marianne reversed the shrinking charms on the furniture before walked into the abandoned classroom and started to cast the privacy and notice me not charms on the door, after considering the incident with the other abandoned classroom he also added ghost blocking and redirecting charms to the quarters. After he was finished he was sure that even if the door to the quarters was wide open nobody would feel the urge to investigate further and just close the classroom door again.
Satisfied with his work Sirius walked back into the sitting area that had already been completed. In the middle sat the couch with the coffee table and the two armchairs, the red carpet underneath them. On the right side were the bookshelves and the cabinets, decorated by candleholders and small interesting looking knickknacks that he hadn't seen Marianne pick up. A few books were also already in the shelves, curious an exploring Sirius wandered into the room on the left side of the bathroom, Marianne had apparently decided to use it as the bedroom. The bed linen of the double poster bed were blue and white and on both sides were bedside tables as well as a matching wardrobe in the corner. Marianne had thought of everything had it been him he would have just put a bed into the room and probably would have forgotten the bedding.
A quick look into the bathroom confirmed his musings, she really had thought about everything. He could see a bath rug, towels, shampoo and even soap! Sirius grin had gotten gradually bigger while he wandered through the quarters should they still be close friends by his graduation he would invite Marianne to help him furnish his own home.
He found her in the smallest room on the right side, at the moment she was placing the last test tubes in the cupboard on the side table while in the middle was a work table as well as two cauldrons over gas burners. The shelf beside the door was still empty but he was sure it would be filled up in no time with either potions or ingredients.
After finishing with the sorting the test tubes into the cupboard, Marianne turned around to the work area to start with the protection and security charms that her father had taught her the moment she got her wand. Finished and feeling content with her work she turned around to see Sirius leaning in the door watching her intently. Marianne cursed her stupid hormones when she felt her cheeks becoming hot; of course she had to blush!
Sirius had to bite the inside of his mouth to stop himself from laughing; she was so cute, turning red and shy as soon as she wasn't distracted anymore. To be honest the eldest Black son was impressed, those charms were tricky and normally used only by professional potion masters as far as he knew. His class had learned them from Slughorn the week before, when he demonstrated a few ways to make their brewing safe in their homes.
A quick glance on his watch showed that they had only an hour till dinner left and so the two agreed to meet the next day after the afternoon classes, Sirius then made his way to the Quidditch pitch where James held the trials for the new reserve team.