Chapter 11: Liquid luck?

Sirius Black never considered himself to be the envious type. So it baffled him that these feelings had surfaced, not only once in the week, but five times! Five times he had felt an unrelenting rage at different male classmates. He had originally thought it had to do with them all being in Slytherin and trying to cosy up to Luna. So it unsettled him that he wanted to throttle his friend and tell him to 'back off.' He knew he was being unreasonable though, so he plastered on his best false smile as Remus shared about his conversation with Luna. He had always wanted the best for his friends, heck, he had become an illegal Animagus to help his friend. The feeling of jealousy toward Remus was unnerving to say the least. Sirius wondered if this was how James had felt towards Snape. For Sirius, it had always just been dislike for Snape but this feeling was something else entirely.

Then there was his feelings toward Luna he was grappling with. He had gone through a flurry of emotions in the last few days and was wondering if the Blacks mental instability was catching up to him. Initially he had felt undeniable attraction for her. Then again, every one else seemed to be under the same spell. All the males knew it wasn't because she was new that she was getting stares. People unashamedly didn't even hide it at times. He even wondered if she had any Veela blood in her. Her blood had been far different than he had ever expected though.

In an ironic twist, he had been so worried she would find out about his dark family heritage, yet hers had been far more grim. The attention she was getting before her heir status came out was bad. But you could double that, add a little bit and that's where it was now. She was an enigma and had somehow managed to have every of age person in the school come to her party after just two days in Myrtles bathroom of all places. Sirius had resented himself for even finding her attractive when she was placed in Slytherin. He felt vile when he heard that people had coined the name 'Queen of Slytherin' for her. All he could see now was a porcelain doll with Slytherins trailing after her. It was out of anger that he had marched his friends to Dumbledores office and wildly proclaimed she was a Death Eater. Then the strangest thing happened yet, he found common ground with a Slytherin. Sorrow was what he felt now. He of all people knew what it was like to be unwanted by the person who should want you the most. Sirius almost felt bitter about his heartstrings being pulled at this point. Almost. The overriding emotion was now shame at his own hypocrisy. Had he not come from a dark family and been different? Had he really thought she'd come from too dark of a family to be redeemable like he was? Sirius normally found it hard to find his faults, but Luna seemed to have turned over a new leaf for him. It was somewhat refreshing to be challenged like this. This is probably what drew him in to follow her with the first year. Whatever he had come to expect would happen, the opposite most likely would with her. Sirius listed in his mind, besotted, revolted, enraged, sorrowful, guilty, curious, and then landed on being in awe. It was rather thrilling experiencing all of this in only a few days. Sirius didn't want to land on Jealous of all emotions though, so he pulled out his vial of Felix Felicis and said confidently, "we need to strike while the irons hot."

Lily looking concerned replied, "no maybe we should slow down and make a proper plan. We don't even know if that stuff works or not."

"Lily I know you're knew to being part of our group, so I can give you a little grace, but that's not how we do things." Lily look affronted but Sirius continued, "Remus and I built a real connection with her yesterday and we need to build on that before the smoochy Slytherins win her over."

"I don't think anyone is going to do any winning over today, the Great Hall was the emptiest I've ever seen it for breakfast this morning. Luna's probably lying in bed so hung over she can't figure out who she was even dancing with."

"Lily, no amount of alcohol will make her forget dancing next to this," Sirius arrogantly said motioning to himself.

"Besides, you're a similar build to her and had the same amount of shots as everyone else and I don't question your memory of what happened last night," Sirius said pointedly motioning to James.

Lily blushed and looked down embarrassed at this and it seemed to have the desired effect for her silence so Sirius continued.

"I'll just take some of this, find Luna, figure out all her secrets and use the information against Voldemort. Sound simple enough?"

Nobody looked like they were willing to argue with Sirius when he had that look of determination in his eye. Truth be told, everyone was feeling the after effects of the night before, and didn't want to disagree anyway. So the other boys accepted that there was no point in wasting time twiddling their thumbs when a war was going on outside their four walls.

They all watched as Sirius dripped some potion onto his tongue. Sirius' expression changed from determination to a knowing look, like he had just figured out a complicated puzzle. Sirius then preceded to have a look of superiority and narrowed his eyes slightly at his friends. When they all looked back at him blankly Sirius announced jovially, "we don't need to find her, she already told us!" When the others still looked on blankly, Sirius decided to move into action and started walking with purpose to the door and the others trailed behind.

James was the first to speak as they power walked to keep up with Sirius, "told us what Sirius, you're being really vague and a pain in the arse, just tell us what you know."

"You'll see. We just need to find Myrtle."

"What! You just said this morning, you'd rather piss in your hands and clap than see her again."

Sirius rolled his eyes at that and kept walking in Silence to the girls bathroom.

Myrtle looked like Christmas had come early as Sirius entered the bathroom. Sirius putting on his best faux charming voice announced, "its lovely to see you again Myrtle, I just wanted to know what ever happened to you? How did you die in the end?"

Myrtle sighed dramatically and floated over to sit next to the fire whiskey tap from the night before and as she flicked her hair round her shoulder enticingly said, "right here where there used to be no water from the tap, a great pair of yellow eyes came out of this sink and looked at me. Thats all I can remember."

"Can you remember hearing anything before you saw the eyes?" Sirius asked.

"Yes I heard a kind of whispering, not like I'd ever heard before actually and it sounded like slime was moving up through the sink."

Sirius turned around to Lily, James and Remus who all looked shocked. "It wasn't the Acromantula in the forbidden forest."

"There is a WHAT in the forbidden forest?" Lily asked looking frightened.

Sirius ignoring this with his own cogs turning muttered to himself, "take a stare for Myrtle, she took one for you." Sirius then looked up at the others with an excited glint in his eye, "that's it! A stare killed Myrtle and the only thing than can do that is a Basilisk. A giant snake, of course that was Slytherins beast!."

James looked confused now and asked, "Ok, what in Merlins name is a Basilisk?"

"Really, you never had the bed time story of 'The Snake and the mistake'? Sirius asked with genuine surprise.

Lily dead panned, "most normal children had 'The cat in the hat,' Sirius, not some story about a beast that can kill people by staring."

"Touche." Sirius replied, then continued, "Luna had to get into this sink to get the Fire Whiskey to flow through the tap. We might be able to trace where the Basilisk came from if we can get into it."

Remus, James and Lily attempted to get the sink to open up while Sirius asked Myrtle what she knew of a Tom Riddle at school. After their attempts were futile, the group decided to head to the library. Sirius finds the book containing information about Basilisks far faster than he should have, if not for the Felix Felicis. The key was Roosters according to the old book, so they decided to give Hagrid a visit.

Sirius kept talking away happily to mostly himself as they made their way to the groundskeepers hut about children stories he had grown up with to Lily's horror. To everyones surprise, but Sirius' they heard laughing already coming from inside the hut which only paused after they knocked.

"Come in, come in" came Hagrid's booming voice.

Sirius looks around the room and his eyes find Lunas as she gives a faux shiver. Remus burst into laughter as he comes in and high fives Luna keeping up the joking from the night before.

Hagrid noticing the friendliness says, "yeh all know each other eh? Well of course yeh friends aren't ya, Luna loves all the magical creatures." Remus disguises a cough and every one looks at each other in surprise. Hagrid quickly realises by saying, 'I shouldn' a said that, I should not have said that."

Sirius being uncharacteristically the first one to recover quickly changes the topic by asking, "How've you been Hagrid?"

"Yeah not te bad thanks for asking, Luna always knows how te cheer an old chap like myself up with her stories. And ye self, I haven't seen yer lot since the start o' term."

"Good thanks Hagrid I'm actually feeling particularly lucky today," Sirius said without breaking eye contact with Luna and she nervously gulped down her tea. "So lucky in fact we thought if we asked nicely we might be able to borrow some Roosters Hagrid? We wondered if there were any floating around the school?"

Luna is the one choking on a cough now, but this is ignored by Hagrid, too excited to talk about animals. "Yeah we do actually have em in the forest. I can take ye to em if ye like?"

"Yeah that would be perfect thanks Hagrid," Sirius replied politely.

"Great Luna, would ye like te come along too? Come on, ye was just talking about making better friends than the ones in Slytherin who tried to woe ye this morning. Not too many brains that Goyle felluh has. The great prune tryen te gift ye his mothers tainted jewellery."

"Aww no I wouldn't want to intrude." Luna said hesitantly, but Hagrid insisted dragging Luna from her chair saying, "nonsense, yeh not intruden." Then to everyone but Lunas great amusement, Hagrid started trying to match make with the subtlety of a brick through a window. He started talking about Sirius' prowess in quidditch as they headed into the forest. When Luna talked about not thinking quidditch skills were that helpful in life he put in how Sirius was very good with his dog, Spanky, just like Luna was. Luna couldn't help but grin every time Hagrid mentioned the name of his dog. To make it even more obvious, Hagrid pointed out how Luna and he were good with other animals while Sirius chased after a Rooster to grab. Luna not being able to help herself any more says to Hagrid as Sirius successfully grabs a Rooster, "do you think he's perhaps over compensating for something?" Luna got the response she wanted out of Lily, who burst out laughing. Sirius never allowing himself to be the butt of jokes cuts in, "No, I don't need to compensate for anything. I can assure you I have the biggest Rooster right here," he said winking and holding up high the Rooster he had grabbed showing off its under side. Lily looked dubiously at Sirius and said, "I doubt that." James replied flustered, "oh, it's definitely not true."

Hagrid then out of nowhere said, "absolutely not" leaving everyone bending over laughing. Hagrid completely missing the underlying meaning points at a Rooster at the far side and says, "that one is by far bigger."

"Dang, he's right" Sirius said as he abruptly dropped his fighting Rooster ungracefully and chased down the other Rooster.

In this moment, Luna could really look at Sirius. Yes she had seen him before, but every time she had been overwhelmed with emotion looking into the eyes of her Dads hero. Right now his playfulness drowned this out with him trying to tip toe close to the Rooster looking like a complete moron. She also had the excuse of looking at him for a long time because everyone was watching and laughing at his antics chasing Roosters. Luna was suddenly admiring his Quidditch skill in a new light compared to what she had moments before with Hagrid's gloating. Sirius had taken some layers off and was fast running in his white school shirt. His reflexes were fast and he was agile enough to keep direction changing with the Rooster. His sleeves were pushed up and accentuated his strongly developed arms. There was no denying, Sirius Black was fit, but more importantly for Luna he was fun. There was amusement alight in Sirius' eyes as he crept forward like an idiot. When the Rooster paused, Sirius would do his best impersonation of a Roosters walk, sticking his neck out at a weird angle and creep closer to the animal. Luna wasn't the only one appreciating the performance though, everyone else was laughing at this and everyone cheered when he finally lunged and caught the brute. Luna had an unrelenting clench in her stomach as she was the first person he looked up to after he got back to his feet to see her response to his small moment of glory.

The first thing out of Sirius' mouth was unashamedly, "See, like we were talking about before, I'm basically the whole package, good looking, fast on my feet, I have a large Rooster and to top it off I'm humble."

Hagrid rocked back on his feet looking impressed and gave Luna the raised eyebrows and wink as if to say, 'I told yeh luna.' Luna responded with the deserved laugh and came back with, "it was definitely the Felix Felicis."