Chapter 7
In the following weeks the quarters were filled with even more cupboards as well as a desk and chair on the left wall of the sitting room. After realizing how much better she could concentrate in the converted private quarters, Marianne had moved all her potion notes and other extracurricular records to the den, as she had started to call the quarters fondly. Sirius had come up with the name and Marianne thought that it was a pretty good fit. When Marianne needed time for herself she would hide out there. The time she spent in the den drastically increased during the following weeks because as much as she loved her fellow Hufflepuffs, the common room was not a good place to complete homework, also the library and the Great Hall weren't as secure as the teachers liked to believe. Since the current political climate had led to something like a Cold War at Hogwarts things had gotten rather tense. Marianne had already been the victim of a misdirected curse that had given her painful blisters on her arm and during another time her nearly completed homework had been destroyed by a stray spell.
Quite often she was joined by Sirius who appeared about two to three times a week as far as she could tell,most of the time Sirius came to their place when he needed space to calm down or to simply vent his frustrations. If there was one thing Marianne had learned in the last weeks it was that Sirius Black was unbelievably hot-tempered and that he normally alleviated his blood pressure with playing pranks or simply hexing bullies and unsurprisingly his favorite target was Severus Snape. But due to the increased presence of the teachers in the halls the Black hadn't had enough opportunities to get rid of his pent up emotions. Marianne had seen Sirius more than once cursing up a storm inside the now heavily warded bedroom or watched him pace agitatedly in the sitting room. Strangely enough the normally so skittish Hufflepuff wasn't as uncomfortable as she thought she would be, even with his horrible temper she still felt safe with Sirius and while she kept an extra eye out for particular explosive moods she trusted him with her safety.
But back to the Slytherins, to be more exact a certain greasy haired one. Severus Tobias Snape was the most unpleasant student in Hogwarts.
FULLSTOP.
Marianne had known this of course from the memories of her witch side but she was still shocked about how nasty the sixth year Slytherin truly was. When Snape was in a bad mood, which to be honest was more often than not, he particularly enjoyed terrorizing the younger years of Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Some of his favorite past times were bringing them to tears in less than a minute or hexing them so that they had to spend the rest of the day in the infirmary. The rivalry and hate between him and the Marauders was legendary throughout Hogwarts and far far worse than Joanne K. Rowling had ever described it in her books. In said books the Marauders were described as overconfident and bored bullies that didn't know when to stop. Yes they were overconfident and more often bored than not; yes they bullied some of the Slytherins and a few Ravenclaws but not completely without cause.
Rowling often described Severus Snape as the poor ugly duckling that was teased and beaten by the big bad swans and so forced to the dark side but that wasn't the truth. Rowling had just picked one or two occasions as examples where the Gryffindors had really overdone it but in reality Snape gave as good as he got and lashed out at everything that moved with the exception of his own house, the teachers and Lily Evans. He was a cruel, dreadful person and Marianne was absolutely horrified at the idea that somebody like him would be teaching future generations of potion makers. During his time as Hogwarts Professor he had probably ruined a good number of promising students with his demeanor. Those children had probably simply decided that a potion career wasn't worth suffering through more years than absolutely necessary under Snape's tutelage.
Another clashing point between Snape and the Marauders besides the obvious ones about blood status was Lily Evans. Beautiful, kind, hot tempered and very, very muggleborn Lily Evans who still was friends with Snape and this friendship drove James Potter completely bonkers. Well at least that was what Sirius said while he complained fondly about his best friend. It seemed as if until now Snape had been able to hide his nasty side when he was in the company of the red haired Gryffindor beauty and so made James look even more spoiled than he truly was. Because let's face it James Charlus Potter was the only child of his parents and had arrived very late in their lives. So of course they had been spoilt rotten in his younger years, which unfortunately now hampered his chances with a certain green eyed beauty.
Marianne was fascinated by the stories Sirius told her and the Gryffindor loved to talk and so vent his frustrations. As a result the blonde Hufflepuff had learned in the two months more about the intricate relationships between the Marauders and some of the other Gryffindors than she had pieced together in the last four years or learned through the books.
The blonde Abbott also finally had collected and ordered enough potion ingredients to start experimenting in her private potion lab. It reminded her of the muggle experiments they had done in chemistry which she had always found exciting. At first she kept to the easier things, like getting rid of the horrid taste of some of the basic healing potions. This required simply more ingredients than normally were used in a standard pepper up or headache potion. This was also the reason why the cheaper versions were written down in the potion texts and not the more tasty ones. But after a while Marianne finally changed her focus to her witch sides' true passion, poisons and their antidotes.
Marianne had a good dozen of the most lethal potions in the Wizarding world memorized in her head. Said poisons could be made out of some relative basic and easy accessible ingredients. She had always been fascinated by the thought of how such relatively harmless parts could be turned into a lethal weapon with a bit of skill and knowledge. And this passion and fascination had carried over into this new Marianne. The slight confidence boost that she had gained from the older muggle Marianne made her experiment with more and more difficult potions and poisons as the weeks progressed. To counterattack some of the adverse effects of handling dangerous ingredients she started to take small doses of certain poisons to build up immunity against them.
About two weeks after starting to work in her lab Marianne had her first real fight with Sirius. She had come late and annoyed into Den because Flitwick had given them an extended lecture about the importance of charm rules after a particular botched up charm had landed two students in the infirmary. Tired from the day she just wanted to sit down and relax a bit when she caught sight of Sirius smelling on one of her experimental potions in her lab. She nearly had a heart attack and screamed at him to put it down. Marianne let her things drop and ran into the laboratory to snatch the poison out of his hand and re-corked it as fast as possible before she grabbed her box with antidotes and pelted Sirius with questions to find out from which bottles he had smelled. The Gryffindor had thankfully only opened the one she had caught him with and so she only had to force down the readymade antidote without having to drag him down to Pomfrey for a checkup that would have led to some uncomfortable questions for both of them.
After the first shock disappeared Marianne let herself fall into the black leather sofa before anger slowly built in her gut, how unbelievable stupid was Sirius? And with that in mind she started a tirade about smelling on unknown potions and proper handling of brews, which of course made Sirius very defensive and angry as well
"Merlin damn it, I know that you take this whole potions thing seriously but what was so bad about me being there. I only looked for a Pepper-up and that potion had the right color, I just wanted to check if it wasn't something different." Sirius nearly shouted.
As an answer Marianne started to hysterically laugh before she cried, "Sirius, you are an idiot. You have really no idea what that was do you? I… oh Merlin, I nearly killed you! I've been experimenting with some poisons, if I hadn't caught you smelling it, it could have killed you!" Marianne shouted right back.
She didn't care that this wasn't her usual way to handle confrontation, this was SERIOUS, Merlin she had even LABELED the bottle, this stupid Gryffindor should use his eyes! It suddenly hit her like a brick wall, her experiments had nearly killed her closest friend! And with that the dam broke and she let out gut wrenching sobs. After her answer Sirius went very pale and quiet before he sat down beside her and hesitantly took her into his arms and hugged her.
"It's okay, you caught my mistake in time, please stop crying, I… I really can't take watching you cry, look I'm fine,… I will even stay out of your lab I promise, just, just stop crying!" the last bit was said in a pleading voice.
Sirius was at his wits end while he tried to comfort Marianne, why oh why did girls have to be so emotional?
Marianne slowly calmed down and her sobbing receded until she only hiccupped from time to time and buried even closer into Sirius warm embrace. The idiot was alive and safe, but oh Merlin she had come really close to losing him and that through a stupid mistake! She wouldn't know what to do if she really lost him! She could finally admit it even if only to herself, Sirius Black was her anchor in this new and strange world, the one that made her laugh and broke through her shyness; she needed him to stay sane. Marianne sniffled again while she felt Sirius grab one of the big yellow blankets and put it around both of them. Now that she finally had calmed down a bit Marianne took in her position. During her crying fit Sirius had pulled her onto his lap and encased her in his warm arms. Her head was lying sideways on his heart while he softly stroked through her hair. She gulped; it felt really good to be that close to the Gryffindor.
The two ended up spending nearly an hour in this position, before Marianne finally moved. Her tear tracks had dried up and while her eyes were still slightly puffy she looked a lot more composed.
"You wanted a Pepper-up, didn't you? Are you alright?" she asked while she took in his exhausted face and the dark rings under his eyes.
He just answered with a yawn, "Yeah, rough night, spent the whole night awake and I think I have caught a cold."
Nodding Marianne stood up and made her way into the lab to grab a Pepper up and some cough drops for the next day.
Grateful Sirius swallowed the potion and pocketed the drops before he pulled her back down onto the couch and into a hug while he asked her, "We good?".
Marianne nodded and returned the hug before mumbling into his shirt, "I will start to stock up the bathroom with Pepper-ups and other useful Potions. Please promise me Sirius that you will check with me before you take something from the lab again."
The last part was said so imploringly that Sirius couldn't help the small smile and the reassuring kiss to her forehead, "I will, I promise."
After that they spent the rest of their time quietly working in each other's presence. Sirius on his homework, while Marianne finished filling in the gaps of The Tale of Peter the Rabbit and Diary of a Worm and Diary of a Spider. She had enjoyed those books immensely when she had read them with her kids and hoped they would also be popular in the Wizarding world.
Sirius couldn't help but look up again, to check if Marianne was really fine. This incident had clearly shaken her up, even more so than himself after all he always lived dangerous, be it while spending his time with a werewolf on full moon or playing around with more or less potent pranks. This was also the first time he had had Marianne in his arms, before that there were only fleeting touches and teasing pokes. She had fit well into his arms, her smaller form had felt surprisingly fragile and he had been afraid that he would break her the moment he grasped a little bit harder. Marianne was also soft, Sirius shuddered slightly, he liked the soft part.