𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗡𝗘𝗥 𝗢𝗙 𝗔𝗭𝗞𝗔𝗕𝗔𝗡 [𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚍]

Chapter Seven: To Heck With It

‾‾‾‾‾‾‾ ･⋆✵⋆･ ‾‾‾‾‾‾‾

Sirius skipped dinner and didn't sleep well that night, still thinking about the letter. He pulled back the curtains of his four poster and peered at James's clock. 2:45.

He slumped back against his pillow and tried to close his eyes but it didn't help. His mind didn't want to sleep.

Mother hates me.

3:45.

Father is trying to pretend like everything if fine.

4:45.

Pity he isn't fooling anyone.

5:45.

Bellatrix is a bloody, nosy sneak.

6:45.

My eyes are getting itchy.

7:30.

"Wake up, James."

"Leave me be, Remus."

"Suit yourself. Wake up, Sirius- Are you okay, Sirius?" stammered Remus when he pulled back Sirius's curtains to find him staring off into space like an Inferi.

Sirius suddenly threw his bed sheets off himself and sat up. He almost wanted to slap himself for losing a whole nights sleep for something so trivial and stupid.

To heck with it all, he thought. To heck with that stupid letter. To heck with not being in Slytherin. To heck with what my mother thinks. To heck with Father's horrible attempt to make me fell better (although a little appreciated). And finally . . . to heck with Bellatrix and her nosiness.

"I'm fine. Very fine. In fact . . . I'm superb. Are you guys hungry? I'm hungry."

‾‾‾‾‾‾‾ ･⋆✵⋆･ ‾‾‾‾‾‾‾

The rest of the week went very well. Sirius realized that life is so much easier when you just don't give a rats fart what happens.

Peter Pettigrew was also an official member of their group now instead of just trying to tag along when their guard was down. They (They meaning James and Sirius) let Peter hang out with them because he thinks everything they do is awesome, unlike Remus who lovingly treats them like they're the stupidest gits to have graced the halls and corridors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The boys were currently making their way towards the dungeons for Potions, innocently minding their own business and planning a prank on Snape, when the door to the Potions classroom burst open and out poured sixth year Gryffindors and Slytherins.

"You guys go ahead. There is something I have to do." said Bellatrix to her friends and hung back.

Sirius made to enter class and be under Slughron's eye before something he'll regret happened but Bellatrix grabbed him by the scruff of his robes and pulled him back. She sneered at any first years who stared and they all tumbled into class. Except for James and Remus. And Peter too, though reluctantly.

Bellatrix glared at the boys a little longer for good measure before turning back to Sirius with a shrug. "First you get sorted into Gryffindor" she breathed, invading Sirius's personal space. "and now running around with blood traitors." Bellatrix's eyes flickered back to James as she said this. "What are you playing at, you little midget?"

Sirius wishes he could look back on this moment with a smirk and tell you that he told Bellatrix that the phrase 'little midget' is prone to redundancy and did a few impressive spells to send her back to her dungeon. But Bellatrix had a reputation for jinxing people's buttocks off so Sirius just looked up at her with polite indifference.

"Didn't Auntie teach you to speak when your spoken to or are you too stupid to string together two words?" she hissed and tightened her grip on Sirius but Professor Slughorn stumbled to the rescue just then as he came to close the classroom door.

"Why aren't you boys in class?" he asked James. Then his eyes traveled to Sirius and Bellatrix who was still practically strangling him. "Is something wrong, Miss Black?"

Before Sirius could scream Everything is wrong, you blind walrus!!!, Bellatrix smiled and said sweetly, "Not at all, Professor. Just greeting my cousin." and planted a kiss on Sirius's cheek. Sirius tried not to gag.

"Get inside then." said Professor Slughorn, still a little dazzled by Bellatrix's tantalizing smile. He grabbed Peter somewhere above the elbow and led him inside.

Sirius doesn't have telepathy with Bellatrix, and he thanked Merlin he didn't, but the message behind the look Bellatrix gave him couldn't have been clearer. It's not over.

"Woof, mate. You've got a very dysfunctional family." sighed James as they stepped into class.

"Tell me about it." Sirius grumbled, trying to fix his collar.

But maybe Sirius does give a little bit of a rat's fart after all because did she piss him off, treating him like he was just a garden gnome she can kick around. He wasn't paying much attention to his potion and it ended up causing poisonous fumes that went straight through his flaring nostrils before Remus could pull him out of the way.

"Porcupine quill after taking the cauldron off the fire." said Professor Slughorn patiently, inspecting the thick, dark green bubbling paste in Sirius' cauldron with a wrinkled nose. "Why don't you go and see Madam Pomfrey? Wouldn't want to lose another student, eh." he added and chuckled uncomfortably.

"I always thought the Quidditch field was the most dangerous place in this school but now even the classrooms are . . . are . . ." stammered Madam Pomfrey as she cleaned Sirius' nose and dabbed a cloth socked in dittany on it.

"I'm fine." Sirius grumbled. "It's just a nosebleed."

"Just a nosebleed? Do you know how many liters of blood you have? Only six. Six." she shrieked, pressing the wad onto Sirius's nose a little painfully.

"And how much do you reckon I lost now?" Sirius humored her but she didn't take well to the cheek.

Madam Pomfrey handed Sirius a small red bottle and told him to take three sniffs of it every night before bed for the next five days and shooed him out of the ward, muttering under her breath something about the ignorance of children in the fields of medicine.

‾‾‾‾‾‾‾ ･⋆✵⋆･ ‾‾‾‾‾‾‾