Marauders - Always - Part One

Pyxis Black's Detention

Pyxis Black stuck her head out of her dormitory room and looked up and down the hallway. Nobody was in the corridor, so she hurriedly rushed across the hallway to the stairs, clutching her bookbag and keeping her head down, her Mary Janes clunking on the thick green carpet as she ran down the grey marble staircase to the Slytherin common room. Overhead, the glass dome that looked out into the depths of the lake glowed an eerie mid-afternoon green. The giant squid lay in a cradle made from the dome and the wall of rock on the castle side of it, tentacles wrapped around the dome like a person hugging a pillow in their sleep.

The Slytherin quidditch team was practicing down at the pitch and most of the big kids that were nasty to her were out on the grounds, either playing or watching the players, and it seemed a lot of the others had decided at studying in the Library. She got some nasty glances shot her way, but none of the other first or second years that cluttered the common room's tables and chairs seemed keen to cross her after she'd thrown a punch at the flying lessons. She'd proven she could hold her own and at least the younger Slytherins weren't willing to test if she'd do it again.

Pyxis scurried down the hall, past the Potions classroom, up the dungeon stairs and across the Entrance Hall. Some of the older kids were just getting back, laughing about something that had happened out on the pitch, and she ducked quickly up the grand staircase to avoid being spotted, her legs burning with the speed she moved at.

Upstairs, she allowed herself to slow and gasped for breath as she made her way to the Transfiguration corridor, where she was to meet James Potter for her detention in one of the classrooms on that wing. She arrived a little bit late after getting lost when a moving staircase turned her the wrong way, but James didn't seem to notice. He barely looked up when she came in, pouring over a book that was laid flat on the desk before him. Pyxis slid into a seat at a desk in the corner, nearest the window, where the sun was warm and she could see out to the tree tops across the grounds as they fluttered and swayed in the wind coming off the lake.

James glanced up. "Hullo Miss. Black," he said.

"Hullo," she answered. Her eyes flitted to the clock, then back to him, but he didn't check it, he simply went back to his book. She sighed in relief. She reached for her book bag, digging about for her homework - an essay for Charms on the Wingardium Leviosa. Pyxis was laying out the parchment when James Potter cleared his throat. She looked up.

"Miss. Black, I'd actually rather you assist me with a lesson that I am learning," he said.

Pyxis blinked, confused. "A lesson you're learning? But you're not in school."

"Learning doesn't stop at the end of school," James said. "And I need someone to quiz me. Would you help?"

"Alright..." Pyxis said tentatively.

James waved for her to come over, magicking a comfy arm chair across the desk from himself. Pyxis looked down at her parchment, then got up, abandoning it, and walked over, tugging the sleeves of her jumper into her fists and biting her lower lip. "What are you learning?" she asked, sitting on the chair gingerly.

"Sign language," James replied.

Pyxis looked up at him in surprise, "Because of that girl, Sarah?"

James nodded. "A couple of us teachers are trying to learn some."

"But she has those goggles you gave her. And Dumbledore made her some glasses like that for classes," Pyxis added.

"Has he?" James asked, "That's very kind of him."

"Yeah," Pyxis said. She hesitated, then said, "So why d'you gotta learn signing language?"

"Well, Sarah can understand us but what about her being able to be understood?" James asked.