Chasing Time (sirius black)

BLACK DOG

We had spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday lounging around or working on homework. I managed to escape a flying lesson on Sunday but just barely. Sirius had taken one look at my Potions essay and been so appalled at it that he spent the rest of the day re-explaining Veritaserum to me and helping rewrite it. I might be neurotic at writing notes, as he so kindly put it, but that didn't mean I understood what I was writing. And for someone who acted as though he wasn't interested in schoolwork or even graduating, he was pretty adamant about my work being correct.

Everyone had managed to complete all of their work by Sunday night except for me. As I finished up my Transfiguration essay, Lily and Remus were reading and the rest were loudly playing Exploding Snap. I had to take a minute to control myself as I watched all of them.

Thinking about last night, I started to get choked up again. It was such a normal evening. How many of these would they have left? Once they graduated, they were stepping into a war. I wasn't full of myself, I knew I wouldn't be able to stop an entire war before graduation but...they deserved nights like this all the time.

It was Monday though and the thought of the week's worth of homework I'd be getting made me exhausted. Stepping out of the shower, I wrung out my hair, using my towel to scrunch it dry. Lily turned towards me and gasped loudly. "Oh, Merlin!"

"What?" I looked around, not knowing what she was staring at with horror. I spun back towards her. "What is it?"

"Your - oh, Mads." Her hand covered her mouth and she seemed in shock. "I'm going to kill those boys."

"Lily, what?" She gestured towards the mirror. I stepped closer and found myself staring at a pink haired girl. What the - "Oh."

It was me. I had pink hair. Leaning closer to my reflection, I ran my fingers through the neon pink strands. Lily came up next to me and began to console me. "I can figure out a potion to get rid of it. Remus probably knows what they used. It shouldn't take -"

"Lily," She continued to work out how she would revert my hair back to its dark brown color but I stopped her with a hand on her arm. She sputtered to a stop, confused by the grin on my face. "It's ok. I love it."

"You what?" She screeched, jaw dropping.

"I mean, I would've picked blue or purple instead of pink." I ran a hand through my hair again, admiring it in the mirror. "But it's great! My hair never looks this good when I color it."

"But - but -" Uh oh. I think I broke Lily. It was true though. My hair was so dark it took hours for me to lighten it when I dyed it last year. Then when I finally got it light enough, the purple hadn't turned out the way I wanted it to. This was the best color job I've ever had. It looked as if my natural color was pink.

I finished getting ready for the day as Lily continued to stare at me. Running my wand over my head, I used a drying spell to quickly dry my hair then brushed it out and pulled the long pink strands into a ponytail. I had watched Marlene do the spell last week and found it easy to replicate. Poking Lily, she jumped then faced me. "You actually like it?"

"Yes," She shook her head in disbelief. Sighing, I pulled her towards our room. "Let's head to breakfast."

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