fatal love

Chapter 59

"Did you hear about Mulciber?" Marlene asked him. It was Monday, three days since The Incident, and after speaking to Lily on Saturday morning, Sirius had spent most of his weekend in the dorm, avoiding people. But now he had lessons again, and he was going to Muggle Studies.

"No," he said, with intentionally light interest, "what happened?"

"Someone attacked him!" Marlene exclaimed. "Some prefect found him unconscious in a corridor on Friday night, and apparently he's been in the Hospital Wing ever since!"

"He probably deserved it," Sirius shrugged.

"Well, obviously," Marlene snorted, "he's a dick. But still, it's kind of scary, isn't it? That people are just attacking each other in school now?"

The constant threat of violence wasn't really anything new to Sirius, but he knew better than to say that, so he just shrugged noncommittally.

Mulciber was released from the Hospital Wing a week later, with his hands covered in thick bandages. He couldn't pick anything up, not even his wand. His story had been that he'd been Stunned from behind, and had no idea what had happened.

It was obvious to everyone that this wasn't the whole story. Mulciber was known for being aggressive, and not shy about his views on blood-purity. But beyond that, no one knew what had happened. It had the students gossiping, multiple different rumours flying round about who did it.

With the teachers it was a different story. They were all notably more tense after that Friday night; prefects complained about having their rounds doubled, and any duels or cursing now resulted in automatic detention for a week. Sirius had used Dark Magic as well, and he could tell that that concerned the staff. No one said it directly, but he noticed Dumbledore watching all the students more carefully during mealtimes than he used to, his piercing blue eyes scanning the four tables thoughtfully.

Only the Marauders and Lily knew exactly what had happened that night. They didn't speak of it again, even to each other. Or at least, not to Sirius. He wasn't sure if they talked about what he did when he wasn't around, and to be honest, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

It's not like they had much time to discuss it anyway. Sirius noticed Remus spending much more time with Lily than normal, but that was to be expected. She was his closest friend outside of the Marauders, and he was the Marauder closest to her, so he would be the one to be checking on her. Meanwhile, everyone else was busy revising and sitting their exams. Sirius hadn't bothered revising at all this year. He'd started quizzing Benjy on his OWL stuff in the last few weeks, whenever they had one of their meet-ups, but personally, he didn't care that much about his grades. He'd do well, he had no reason to worry.

And while he was sitting his exams, he knew he'd been right. He had already known everything they asked him, so revising would have been pointless. He did most of his work throughout the year anyway - making the spell had made him research Charms and Ancient Runes, becoming an Animagus taught him in-depth Transfiguration, and lots of the stuff Walburga taught him about the Dark Arts could be switched around for Defence if you thought about it.

Mostly, he was concerned about finally finishing the Animagus process. They would be going home at the end of this month, and he was worried about having to carry on the incantations at Grimmauld Place. He was sure if Walburga realised what he was doing, she would put a stop to it, just to be a bitch.

James had broken up with Florence the day after the Mulciber incident. When he came back, he'd actually been depressed, which Sirius hadn't been expecting.

"Did she take it bad?" Sirius asked.

"No, she was great about it," James sighed.

"What's wrong then? I thought you liked Evans?"