sanguine ⏩ sirius black

06.

SIRIUS WAS SAT DOWN IN FRONT OF the fire in the Gryffindor's common room, his hands tugging his hair in frustration. It was after midnight, and the boy was sitting on the floor, surrounded by multiple pieces of crumpled parchment. He had been planted there since he finished detention, trying to figure out a way that he could get his journal back from that damn girl.

Sneaking into the Slytherin common room wouldn't be a problem. But getting into the girl's dormitory definitely would be. He knew that the stairs for the girls' dormitory in Gryffindor turned into a slide when a boy stepped on it. He had no doubt that Slytherin's had a similar, if not the same, defense mechanism.

He had spent the past hour brainstorming, trying to find either a way in or someone to help him, but it was to no avail. He had come up with nothing.

"Padfoot," James said, as he re-entered the common room from his dorm. They were all still pretty tired from the full moon on the night before so the boys had gone to bed early, leaving Sirius hunched over parchment.

The Potter's hair was messier than usual, a classic case of bedhead, and he was squinting behind his glasses.

"Why are you still awake?" James said as he sat beside the boy with a yawn. He reached out for a piece of parchment and uncrumpled it, "You're still trying to get the journal back?"

"Of course I'm trying to get the journal back. Didn't you hear the she-devil? She's gonna take it to McGonagall."

"I heard her," James replied, "I also heard her say she'd give it back once you apologized to Regulus."

"I don't see what I need to apologize for," the gray-eyed boy said as he dipped his quill in the ink jar.

James shook his head, "Come on, Padfoot. Wormtail told me what went down in the clearing, don't you think you crossed a line?"

"I think Wormtail should mind his business. I know why I did what I did and why I said what I said."

"But," James continued, "Regulus is your brother and-"

"Regulus and I may be related by blood but he is not my family. He made that choice over the summer," Sirius stood up with that, "I'm going for a walk. I need the fresh air."

"Padfoot," James called out as the boy started walking to the door, "Padfoot."

James sighed as he was ignored, the door opening and slamming, leaving him in an empty common room.

The bespectacled boy stood up, going back to his dorm as he mumbled to himself, "I swear, this boy will be the end of us all."

Meanwhile, Farrah was strolling the corridors on patrol with the pranking journal opened in front of her. Since she took the book from Regulus on the previous morning, she had been going through it and to say the least, she was impressed. The only thing that the public saw from the Marauders' prank was the presentation of it. Now, going through this journal, she saw all the preparations that went into making these pranks a reality. While some of the pages had an unintelligible handwriting (chicken-scrawl that she knew was Remus'), most of the book was written in a neat penmanship that reminded her of Regulus' own.

Who would have thought that Sirius was the brains behind the operation?

Farrah bent the corner without taking her eye off the page and bumped into something hard that knocked her onto the floor.

"I'm so sorry," an apology fell off Farrah's lips instantly. However, her apologetic nature disappeared once she realized who she had bumped into. Her smile shifted into a straight face, "Oh, it's you."

Sirius rolled his eyes, "Just when I thought my luck couldn't have gotten worse."

"What are you doing here, Mr. Black? Out looking for another week of detention?"

Sirius was about to spit a snark remark at the girl when his eyes fell on the book in her hand. Farrah followed his gaze and at the same time, he reached for the book while she stepped back and pulled out her wand.

"Don't you dare," she said, raising the applewood wand to point at the boy's chest.

Sirius' eyes widened, "Are you threatening me?"

"Well, it depends," Farrah said, closing the book and shoving it in the deep pocket of her robe without taking her eye off of the Gryffindor boy, "Are you on your way to apologize to Reggie or do I have to take another ten points from Gryffindor for you being out after hours again?"

When he said nothing, the girl sighed and lowered her wand, "Wow. The great Sirius Black. I can't believe Reggie ever spoke so highly of you."

Farrah started to move past him but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back, causing the girl to turn and look at him, "What do you mean he spoke so highly of me?"

The hazel-eyed Slytherin pulled her arm out of his grasp and stood in front of him, looking up into his gray eyes, "You have no idea, do you?"

When Sirius shook his head no, Farrah snorted, "Unbelievable."

"Well, are you gonna come out with it or are we gonna stand here all night while you tell me cryptic messages?"

"Why do you think I let you get off scot-free whenever I saw you after curfew for the past month?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest as she stood in the middle of the hallway.

Sirius shrugged, "I don't know. You're always happy and weird that way."

Farrah smiled, "Yeah, there's that. But that's not all there is to it, you know. I'm mainly nice to you because of Reggie. He loves you, he looks up to you. You're his big brother Sirius who comes to kill the monster that's hiding under his bed. I mean, you're a douchebag to everyone but Reggie always said that that's not who you really are. He stood behind you every single time someone in Slytherin tried to bash you in the common room. Man, he even snuck this book out of the garbage for you, and we both know what could have happened to him if he was caught."

The girl swallowed, finding herself getting a bit emotional while she was making her point. She didn't get angry over much things, she thought anger was an ugly emotion, but Regulus' well-being was something worth her getting pissed over.

Shaking her head, she gave Sirius a onceover, "Sirius Black, his childhood hero. It's a shame how wrong he was."

Her words struck a chord in Sirius' chest. His throat became dry but he forced out another question, "What do you mean by that?"

"If you were the Sirius that he said you were, the one that Reggie is willing to put his head on a block for, you wouldn't have hesitated to apologize to him. Hell, you wouldn't have done that in the first place," Farrah answered. The girl turned her nose up in disgust as she continued, "But the fact you're too full of yourself to see that you're hurting your baby brother or that you're so narcissistic that you think that you didn't do anything wrong, then you've never been the hero in his story. You've always been the villain."