metanoia

Chapter Five

"Good morning, Alex," Sirius chirped like he did every morning as he slid into his seat beside her in Transfiguration. This particular Tuesday morning he wasn't accompanied by Remus, in fact she hadn't seen Remus all morning.

Instead of ignoring him, like she had been doing for the past few days, she nodded to acknowledge him but never looked up from her parchment, "No Lupin this morning? He is not feeling well? It's not like him to miss a lesson."

"Uh, yeah. He was- was up all night with a stomach bug so he decided to take a sick day," Sirius stuttered, attempting to remember their cover story for this month as he was taken aback by her concern for Remus. Yesterday was the first night of the Full Moon, which for Remus tends to be the most painful and physically draining of the Cycle.

"He should be fine by tomorrow though, he saw Madam Pomfrey this morning and she said it would pass. Where's Letti this morning?" he quizzed, seeing that her best friend wasn't at her usual seat with Lily Evans, Charlie Johnson and Edgar Bones toward the front of the room.

"She wasn't feeling well either, she must have caught that nasty flu from Marlene. She was sick all last week," she mumbled nonchalantly, not really working that hard to convince him of the lie because she knew that Sirius didn't actually care about Lisette's whereabouts.

Professor McGonagall walked out of her office and to her desk, reading her lesson for the day, "Good Morning everyone, last night you were assigned to write a five inch essay on the differences between Metamorphmagi and Human Transfiguration. Please pass your parchments to the front of the room so we can begin class."

James rummaged through his bag, trying to locate Remus' assignment from the day prior only to find his own assignment. He quickly scratched Remus' name on the top, hoping that Professor McGonagall would be lenient in punishing him like she had done before.

James and Peter sat behind Alex and Sirius, so they passed their two pieces of parchment forward to them. Alex looks down at the top piece of parchment, seeing that James wrote Remus' name on the paper though it was clearly his cursive handwriting. She quickly pulled out a blank piece of parchment as well as both her and Letti's assignments, swiped her wand over the barren parchment and the words scratched onto the paper in a more Remus style of writing. She fixed James' name and passed the six pieces of parchment forward to Amos Diggory before Professor McGonagall caught her doing the assignment for Remus.

Alex looked to her right, seeing that Sirius had watched her do the assignment for Remus. Her expression hardened as she met Sirius' stormy grey eyes, hissing at him in a venomous tone, "If you even so much as think about saying anything to him about my doing the assignment for him, Black, I will kill you."

Sirius smirked at her, seeing that they'd made a little progress in getting her to be their friend, "Oh, I know you will, Worth. I know you will."

"Are you seriously skipping lunch to check on me? Won't you starve to death if you miss a meal?" Letti laughed as Alex plopped down on her bed with chocolate frogs rather than being in the Great Hall for Lunch.

Alex took a bite out of her frog, looking at her card of Nicholas Flamel as she shrugged at the comment, "I already ate during free period but if I get hungry again, I'll sneak into the kitchens during Herbology, Professor Sprout loves me. I'm here because I wanted to escape those incessant Marauders."

"So, it wasn't just to see me?" Letti teased, earning a pillow to the face. "What did they do this time?"

Alex got up off her friend's bed, straightening her robes before she began to go down to the Greenhouses for class, "It's what I did. In a moment of kindness, I did Remus' assignment for Professor McGonagall from last class because he wasn't in class today and Sirius saw me do it. So he thinks I'm starting to give in to them."

"I mean aren't you though? I mean, I understand the whole Remus thing because he's actually nice to you so you were helping," Letti asked as Alex started to leave.

Alex checked her watch, seeing that she was almost late to Herbology, "No, he's an ass. Got to go, love you!"

After Herbology, most of the upper year Gryffindors had a free period so they returned to the Tower to do their homework or just to relax before dinner. Letti came down from her dormitory and joined Alex in the window seat as she did the homework assigned to the both of them during the school day. Charlie and Edgar sat in the corner with Alice Fortescue and Marlene McKinnon, reviewing their reading for the Astronomy lesson the following evening. The Marauders sat in the Common Room as well, Peter and Remus playing Wizard's Chess while James attempted to do his Potions essay due next class.

"Those things can kill you, you know that right?" Alex dully asks as Sirius lit a cigarette next to her.

Sirius took a deep breath, inhaling the smoke from his cigarette before slowly releasing the smoke out of the corner of his mouth, "No, I did not know that, Worth. Thank you for that lifesaving piece of information. What would I do without you?"

"No need to be an ass, Black. I was just trying to save you from a premature death that you'll inevitably suffer from whether be by your smoking habits, ill thought out plans or your sheer stupidity. But honestly, I couldn't care less whether you die or not," she muttered sharply as she continued to scribble the assignment for Herbology on the parchment, wanting to have it finished before dinner.

After hearing her tone Sirius realized that she was right, his sarcastic comment was indeed him being an ass and if he wanted to become friends with her he might want to try another approach. So, heeding her advice, that wasn't truly advice, he pressed his freshly lit cigarette against the stonewall of the Gryffindor Common Room which surprised his friends, who had been watching the exchange. "You're right, they'll kill me. So how about you take them, that way everything I know that can and will kill me will be together," he laughed, offering her his pack of cigarettes from his trousers.

The blonde cocked an eyebrow at the Marauder, unsure of his angle, as she cautiously took his crumpled pack from his hand and tossed them in the fire.
She didn't want them, she couldn't stand the smell of them so throwing them in the fire seemed like the way to go.

Refocusing her attention to her Herbology assignment, a small smile flickered across her lips, "I don't need a pack of cigarettes to know I can kill you, but I'm glad that you aren't daft enough to believe that I wouldn't kill you if I had the chance."

The blonde took her sore, exhausted best friend by the hand, taking her school supplies in the other as she dragged her out of the portrait hole and to the Great Hall for dinner. They laughed and mocked Sirius and his willingness to appease what Alex had to say, laughing all the way until they found themselves seated at the long wooden Gryffindor table.

"Thank you," Remus' tired, hoarse voice croaked as he sat down beside Alex on the bench.

Alex looked up from her plate, almost cleared of her meal, raising an eyebrow at his expression of gratitude, "Why are you thanking me? Oh, did Black-"

"No, no Sirius didn't- he didn't say anything to me, I swear. I figured when James didn't get a detention from Professor McGonagall something happened, so I asked him and he told me what you did. You didn't have to do that."

Alex drained her cup as the blood rushed to her cheeks at the acknowledgement of her actions that morning, leaving the table, "Don't thank me. It was truly nothing. Just forget about it, feel better."