The Last Marauder Standing || Sirius Black

12-Under Unfortunate Circumstances

A week later I found myself rushing through the hallways, books shoved under my arms, rushing back to my dorm room from the library. I had a book practically pressed against my nose as I read and walked at the same time, completely submerged in my work. I had idiotically left my notebook on my bed, and so rather than leaving all of my books in the library and risk them getting put away again, I just decided to check them all out and take them back with me. Hopefully Lily, Marlene, and Alice are out of our room so I can get some work done.

I rounded the next corner, having walked these halls dozens of times and knowing the way back without even looking, but suddenly something stood in my way. Or should I say, someone? I bumped into the person, not looking where I was going, and we both dropped all of our books on the floor. I groaned, kneeling to grab my things. I looked up to apologize when I saw who I had knocked into. Snape.

"Oh- um... sorry about that..." I trailed off, looking away from him. He didn't respond. Instead, he hastily tried to collect his things, making me believe that he wanted to be as far away from me as possible at the moment. I saw an old and tattered copy of our advanced potions book on the floor near my foot. I looked to Snape who was too busy collecting his belongings and showing them in his bag. Noticing that he wasn't paying attention to me, I let my curiosity get the better of me. I had seen him walking around with this book on numerous occasions, always scribbling something down. I opened up to the inside cover and saw written there 'This book is the property of the Half-Blood Prince'. I knitted my eyebrows together in confusion and then opened the book to a random page. I saw scribbles all over the place, all in his messy fast handwriting. This book looked more like the property of a psychopath more than that of a 'prince'.

Just as I was about to close the book and hand it back to him, something at the bottom of the page had caught my eye.

Sectumsempra - for enemies

My curiosity peaked, but it was short-lived. Snape grabbed the book from my hands and stormed off down the other end of the corridor without a single word. I looked down at the floor where some of my books still lay, deep in thought. I soon decided that, while Snape was incredibly sketchy, he has yet to do much to extremely harm anyone and so I couldn't just report him. I sighed to myself, picking up my remaining books. Thank Merlin it's a weekend. The corridors are nearly empty at this time in the morning. I don't think I can deal with much more human contact.

***

A few hours later I found myself in my dorm room while Alice and Marlene still slept. It was around 11 am on Saturday and I was doing work for the project McGonagall had given me. Lily had gotten up around 9 and headed out for some breakfast and has yet to return, but my mind was elsewhere as I had five books all laid out in front of me as I scribbled notes down.

"' the ability to fly is normally developed later, at around twelve months, and the dragon will not be fully mature until it is two years old and ready to live on its own'" I read from a book, muttering to myself and writing down more notes in my book. "Interesting..."

"What's so interesting?" Alice yawned, sitting up in her bed across the room and stretching. I shrugged, hardly paying attention.

"Just this book I got from the library. It was written by a famous dragonologist who-"

"Blah, blah, blah, stop filling my head with this useless information so early in the morning" I heard someone yawn from the bed across from mine. Both Alice and I looked over to see Marlene finally sitting up as well.

"It's not useless information! It's extremely interesting and if you would just take the time to think about it, you would see that" I rolled my eyes at her.