A/N: Happy New Year's (well at least at Hogwarts)! I was quite tired after writing the last chapter and decided to take a break before going on my writing marathon. Chapter Ten will follow very quickly after this one's finished.

CHAPTER NINE:

Dangerous Substances (and Other Things That Aggravate McGonagall)

"I still think it's grossly unfair that we have to start classes the day after New Year's," Natalia grumbled as she sat down for breakfast. "I mean, we barely got to celebrate!"

"You're just sulky because you didn't do all your homework yet," said Lily, briskly pouring herself a glass of cold milk. "Which reminds me, have you finished your Charms essay? It's due on Thursday, you know. You're lucky Professor Flitwick didn't make it due for today."

"It's Sirius' fault! He threw my essay into the hearth!"

"I was trying to make a bonfire!"

"You can't make a bonfire in the Gryffindor common room, you idiot!"

Sirius tried to look dignified, but Natalia threw a bit of sausage at him and marred his attempt.

"What do we have for homework, anyway?" asked Natalia as Sirius glowered at her. She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Well, there's nothing for Potions," said Remus.

"Thank Merlin for Slughorn," Peter breathed. "I don't think I could've handled it on top of Flitwick's essay, and that Astronomy star chart."

"What about History of Magic?" asked Natalia. "You said there wasn't, right?" She turned to Sirius, who shared every one of her classes. He smirked.

"Actually, there was this little bit of homework..." he began slowly, enjoying himself as he saw her eyes widen.

"What? You told me there wasn't!"

"I must've forgotten. You would have known if you hadn't fallen asleep during class again..."

"Sirius! You're going to get more than sausages to the face this time!"

"Aw, come on, Lynx, it's just a paper explaining the Goblin Revolution -" Lily's lips twitched for an instant when she saw that Sirius hair had become extremely frizzy and had taken on a bright orange color. Malia laughed wholeheartedly, but her smile dropped a notch when she saw a group of girls in short skirts strut into the Great Hall. The girl with luxurious brown curls turned her head ever so slightly and shot Malia an icy stare.

"Hullo, Shara! Do you like what I've down with Sirius' hair?" Natalia called, running for the group of girls. She grinned at them, enjoying their identically horrified expressions. She seemed not to notice that Sirius was silently advancing towards her with his wand, until she suddenly spun around. In a split second, Natalia's wand was poking into Sirius' neck, and she was raising her eyebrow in amusement.

"How do you do that?" muttered Sirius, sounding miffed.

"Reflexes," Natalia grinned, before turning Sirius' afro back to his regular dark, elegant hairstyle that drove all of Barclay's gang of girls wild.

"Did you get my gift, Sirius?" one girl cried out, giggling madly.

"Or more importantly," Barclay stepped in, winking, "Did you get mine?"

"Oh, he got it, Shara," said Natalia cheerfully. "But I must say, it's a horrible gift. I mean, who really gives people rubber test tubes for Christmas -" Sirius dragged her away, scarlet-faced, before Natalia had a chance to finish her sentence.

"Nat, one day you've got to learn when to shut your mouth," he muttered as they walked to the Charms classroom.

"But life isn't half as exciting when you do," protested Natalia. And in a way, Sirius had to admit she was right, even if she had already been cornered by Slytherins countless times, made enemies with the most popular girls in Gryffindor, had a homicidal mother, and was blacklisted by every library and bookstore she had stepped into. It made Sirius wonder how she ever survived life.

"Because I'm free... Nothing's worrying me."

"Sing it again, Beauregard. I'm determined to get the song stuck in my head this time," said Natalia.

"We're supposed to be practicing our Anti-Freezing Charms, if you haven't forgotten," scolded Lily, "Nat, stop horsing around!"

"Just wait," coaxed Natalia, before turning back to Malia. "Sing it again."

Malia flushed slightly red, but she still opened her mouth and sang the desired song. "Raindrops keep falling on my head, just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed... nothin' seems to -"

"Wait," interrupted Natalia. "What do raindrops have anything to do with oversized feet?"

Malia shrugged. Lily jabbed Natalia with her wand, glaring at her slightly.

"Do your Anti-Freezing Charm!" she insisted.

"But there's no point, you see," Natalia said, grinning. "My ice cube's already melted into a puddle."

Lily handed her another ice cube, and she made a face. She aimed her wand at the cube and voiced a triumphant gloat when she was able to perform the charm perfectly. She whooped and jumped in the air, shouting, "Haha! In your face, Lily!" However, she accidentally slipped on the anti-frozen ice cube and landed on the floor. Lily laughed at her stunned face.

"In my face, indeed," she grinned, prodding Natalia with her wand.

"Hello, Professor McGonagall!" sang Natalia to the hard-faced professor sitting at her desk. "Did you have a nice holiday?"

"It appears as if you have, Miss Lynx," said Professor McGonagall sternly, taking a sip from her teacup. "But I hope you haven't forgotten to do your homework in all your merrymaking."

Natalia's grinning face dropped. "Homework?" she repeated dumbly.

Professor McGonagall appeared to resist the urge to transfigure the girl's ears into bat ears so she would listen better. She contented herself by rolling her eyes tiredly, at the very least. "The homework, Miss Lynx," she said, "was to practice transfiguring a cup of tea into another beverage." Sirius snorted with laughter as he took his seat.

Natalia blinked, still standing in front of McGonagall's desk. "Well," she finally said, "let's give it a go, shall we?" And without missing a beat, Natalia had whipped out her wand and turned the professor's cup of hot Earl Grey into red wine. She winked.

"I think I've got it all set, don't I, Professor?" she grinned. Professor McGonagall slowly raised the teacup to her lips.

"Very good, Lynx," she said approvingly, putting the teacup down. "Possibly one of the finest transfigured wines I've ever tasted. Take your seat," she said, just before the final bell rung and signaled the start of class.

"Nice save," Sirius whispered to Natalia.

"Sirius!"

Sirius turned his head at the sharp whisper. He saw a girl with brown hair and bright blue eyes, smiling widely at him. He grinned back at her.

"You're going out with Louisa."

"Since when was I going out with Louisa?"

"Since she's been bragging about it in the common room," shrugged Natalia. "You should've seen Shara's face yesterday as she came back from her holiday."

Sirius looked flabbergasted. "What? I'm not going out with her!" he exclaimed, "It's just a couple of dates, it doesn't mean anything!"

"Mr. Black, would you kindly stop chatting with Miss Lynx and continue with your work before I take away house points and give you a detention," said Professor McGonagall, looking at the pair with strict eyes.

"Yeah, Sirius, stop chatting with me," Natalia chimed in, grinning. "Honestly, I can't concentrate with your great mouth right in my ear."

"I would suggest you get back to work as well, Miss Lynx," said McGonagall. "Otherwise you will share a detention with Mr. Black." Sirius grinned haughtily at Natalia's fallen expression.

"Ha ha," he said quietly, transfiguring his glass of tea into a liquid that looked suspiciously like sewage water.

"Ha ha yourself, git," retorted Natalia, turning her glass into fruit juice.

"I wouldn't make fun of me, Nat," Sirius warned, holding his glass. "This water isn't very sanitary, and it could very well slip from my fingers."

"And mine," said Natalia, transfiguring her glass again, "can eat through your clothes." She held her glass up, revealing an odd, lime-green liquid. It was bubbling.

"Oh?" challenged Sirius, turning his sewage water into a red liquid that spurted flames, "what about now?"

Natalia snorted. "Child's play," she grinned, now holding up dangerous-looking black water, with putrid smoke rising from the glass. Sirius stared at it.

"What is that, anyway?"

"Dunno." Natalia shrugged. "Would you like to be the first to try it?" She threatened to dip the contents of the glass onto him. He backed away.

"I'm warning you, Natalia Lynx, you touch me with that - I'll make sure you'll never live to see day again -"

"What?" asked Natalia in shock. "Sirius Black is afraid? Oughtn't you live up to your Gryffindor house? For shame, Sirius," she grinned, still threatening to tip the glass. "Perhaps you belong in Hufflepuff after all..."

"Oi! At least Hufflepuff is better than Slytherin!"

"Yes, but then you'd have to share your glory with Irving, now wouldn't you?" laughed Natlaia. While laughing, her hand unintentionally shook and tipped the glass a bit too far. Luckily, Sirius was able to move out of the way before the mysterious black substance dripped and splattered on the ground. Natalia's eyes widened.

"Blimey, what's that?" she asked, and Sirius bent down to examine it as well.

"I don't know," he said, watching the black liquid squirm around on the floor, "but that bloody thing nearly touched me! Thanks a lot, Lynx."

"It's growing!" And sure enough, the strange black substance was getting bigger and bigger, until it was twice its original size. Even then, the puddle continued to grow, burbling and squirming. Natalia tugged the back of Lily's collar.

"What is it?" asked Lily impatiently, turning around. When she saw the black puddle, she needed no further explanation as to why Natalia had bothered her. It had caught James' attention too, and he gawked at the liquid, which had now grown to almost half of Natalia's height. Finally, the black liquid stopped squirming, and it lay silently on the ground.

"What should we do?" asked Sirius.

"I'll tell you what we should do," said Lily firmly. "We're going to get Professor McGonagall." For once, nobody argued. While Lily walked to the front of the classroom, Natalia crouched down to the floor and looked at the puddle curiously. It was so black - she could have mistaken it as a hole.

"I wonder what happens if we poked it," she said aloud, and prodded the black puddle with her wand. Suddenly, everything happened so fast it was a blur. Almost immediately after Natalia had prodded it gently with her wand, the black puddle became some sort of sucking machine. It swept her off her feet and dragged her into itself, causing her to drop her wand into the hole and hang onto dear life onto the ledge where the puddle ended and floor met.

"Holy - Nat, hold on!" shouted Sirius over the loud wind noise the hole made, and grabbed Natalia's hand firmly.

"Let go you git!" Natalia cried, "I've got to go get my bloody wand!"

"Are you mad?"

"Just let me down a little bit... it's not completely bottomless, you see... I can feel my wand..."

"Nat, you're a bloody lunatic!"

"Got it! Pull me back up, Black!"

James tugged Sirius back for extra strength and support, and together, the two of them managed to overcome the hole's suction power and haul Natalia to safety. Remus quickly covered the hole with a perfectly sized ball he had transfigured out of his desk.

"Note to self: Never poke strange squirming black liquids with wand," Natalia panted as she lay on the floor, her fingers tightly curled around her almost-lost wand. People had gathered around the three, staring at them and looking completely dumbfounded as to what had happened.

"Bloody - Morgana," James grunted. "What the hell was that?"

"Lynx!" came an angry shout, and Natalia swore under her breath. She got up, and came face to face with Professor McGonagall. Her face was dark with rage and she was shaking with fury. Lily stood beside her, with a sincerely apologetic look on her face.

"What do you think you were doing?" she barked. "Abusing your magic and creating all sorts of ludicrous and dangerous substances! Twenty points from Gryffindor for your complete lack of responsibility and detention tonight!" She turned to Sirius, who desperately tried to look innocent. "You," she snapped at the guilty boy, "for your equally irresponsible disregard for my specific instructions, you will be joining Lynx in detention. Seven o'clock, sharp."

Natalia and Sirius looked at each other - they had gotten off unreasonably easy after nearly turning the Transfiguration classroom into a black hole. Just then, the bell rang, and everyone quickly gathered their things and shuffled out the door. However, just as Natalia was about to leave the classroom, she caught sight of Professor McGonagall whipping out her wand and remove Remus' ball. She dissolved the black puddle as easily as she may have transfigured a toothpick into a needle.

Natalia must've imagined it, but she could have almost sworn that she heard Professor McGonagall was muttering to herself about what a brilliant piece of magic it was.

Chapter End Notes: Thank you all so so SO much for reading! I have to give most of the credit for this chapter to my former co-author, blueskies! I luv you, Jennifer!

Review away!

Luv,

ArcanusRose