Zeus || S. Black

Chapter 8

The next day, Sirius was back to his normal self however his anger was evident as he stomped up to the Ravenclaw girl during breakfast. "How'd you do it," the now short-haired boy demanded. 

"I'll tell you when you tell me," Mara teased as she took a bite of her french toast. 

"Nice try but one silly prank isn't going to make me give in," Sirius insisted. 

"Alright then, I'll just have to keep going." 

"Keep going?" Sirius asked, now concerned. 

"Yes, keep going," the Ravenclaw confirmed. Then she stood up from her seat before saying, "and I won't wait until the end of the day this time." 

For the entire day, Sirius was looking over his shoulder, worried about when the girl was going to strike. As he entered into his potions class, the boy almost jumped out of his skin when he saw Mara talking to Professor Slughorn. 

"What are you doing here?" Sirius demanded, cutting off Mara's and Slughorn's conversation. 

Mara sighed and said, "I apologize professor it seems like the younger students weren't taught manners," before turning to the red-faced Sirius, "I was instructed by Professor Greengrass to bring some herbs to Professor Slughorn." 

"Yes and we were just catching up, telling me about a little problem she's had," Slughorn told the teen. 

Sirius gulped before saying, "oh, really?"

"Really. Now take a seat, Black, and Miss Dean if you want to come back at another time I will be more than willing to help," Slughorn said. The Professor then turned towards his desk to find the correct chapter for the lesson as Mara sent Sirius a wink before leaving the class. 

For the entire class, Sirius nervously moved his leg and forced James, his potions partner, to do all the work. By the time that James finished the potion and bottled a sample, Sirius was feeling less anxious as he took the cauldron off the heat. When he did, the potion exploded onto his face and unfortunately for him, the potion they made was the bulgeye potion, causing his eyes to swell. "Fuckin' hell!" 

As dinner was being served in the great hall, Sirius had just been released from the infirmary, no longer having swollen eyes, but a hint of redness proved the day's events. So halfway through dinner when Sirius entered, the first thing he did was spot Mara with her friends and shout, "you!" 

Most if not all the students' heads turned to either face Mara or Sirius as he stormed over towards the Ravenclaw table where the brunette was patiently waiting. Mara just sat there, elbows on the table as she clasped her hands together and leaned her chin on top of her knuckles. "What can I do for you?" 

"That was uncalled for," Sirius argued, referring to his potion exploding. 

"I simply have no idea what you're talking about," Mara responded while batting her eyelashes at the teen. While she was acting innocent, her two friends couldn't have been more obvious as both Angelo and Elise were trying their hardest to keep themselves from laughing. 

"Yes you do and there's no way I'm telling you if you keep this up," Sirius told the Ravenclaw. 

"Well, you won't have to because Professor Slughorn is going to help me and if I did what you're accusing me of, which I didn't, then it would probably only worsen seeing as you didn't give me what I wanted," Mara explained, still batting her lashes. 

"You did do it," Sirius began. 

"Unproven," Mara cut him off, causing the boy to give her a glare. 

"And you won't be able to figure it out," Sirius told her. Mara stared into his eyes and all she could see was truthfulness. 

"Are you trying to say you failed at the spell?" She asked. 

"No I didn't but, I know you won't be able to figure it out without my help," Sirius finalized before walking back to his friends. 

"He sounds confident," Angelo noted. 

"I don't like it." 

And when Mara met up with Professor Slughorn the next day, Sirius seemed to be telling the truth. After trying for three hours both Mara and the professor were lost as neither could figure out the memory. "I'm sorry that we couldn't find it, Miss Dean," Professor Slughorn apologized. 

"No it's fine Professor Slughorn, maybe I just have the wrong parameters for the memory," Mara hypothesized. 

"Perhaps you are right," Slughorn agreed. 

After she left the potion's room, Mara was met by her two friends, linking arms as they began to walk towards the library. 

"How'd it go?" Elise asked. 

Mara crinkled her crooked nose before saying, "we couldn't figure it out." 

The other Ravenclaws raised their eyebrows but said nothing about it. 

"Do you already have tomorrow's prank for Black?" Angelo asked, already hearing about the bunny face he had received earlier and watched as Mara rolled him a head of lettuce. 

"I do," Mara responded, drawing out the 'o'. 

"I know you aren't going to tell us but will it be as brilliant as today's?" Elise asked, no longer believing her friend was bullying the younger Gryffindor and fully encouraging her behavior. 

"Today's was mediocre," she commented, knowing it was the least personalized. 

"Right but you giving him lettuce really boosted the prank in my book," Angelo said. 

"The tail did it for me," Elise added. 

"There was a tail?" Angelo exclaimed. "I must've missed it. How could I have missed it?" 

"Well you're going to get another chance cause here comes Peter Cottontail now," Elise joked as she saw the fluffy faced teen storming their way. 

"Hey Bugs Bunny. What's the matter? Madam Pomfrey couldn't fix you?" Mara asked before Sirius could begin yelling at her. 

"You think this is funny?" Sirius raged. 

"I think it would have been funnier if you had buck teeth," the Ravenclaw admitted, noticing the missing touch. 

"Well it's not funny," Sirius continued, ignoring Mara's comment. "My friends started calling me Thumper! Thumper!" 

Angelo leaned over to Elise and asked, "what's that?" 

"It's the rabbit in a muggle movie called 'Bambi'," Elise whispered back. All the while Mara had to stifle a laugh. 

"Well I think you look absolutely adorable," Mara teased as she pulled on his cheek. She and the other Ravenclaws began to walk away, but before getting too far, she turned around, tossing a carrot into his hands and saying, "for when you get hungry."