October 25, 1976
8:59 pm
Potions Dungeon

No cauldrons were out in this class period of Potions, only vigorous scratching of quills and clinks of their metal tips against glass ink bottles to keep up with what Slughorn was lecturing them about at lightning speed.

Anneliese and Sirius were sitting next to each other unwillingly after Black had been moved for talking to Peter too much.

Slughorn had been paring them together a suspicious amount.

Trying to win some money, perhaps.

"Now, Golpalott's Third Law states that the antidote for a blended poison will be equal to more than the sum of the antidotes for each of the separate components," he declared from the front of the classroom. "This will be important for you to memorize."

"I think I just had a seizure trying to understand that," Sirius muttered under his breath, writing in scrawling penmanship what Slughorn had just said.

Anneliese didn't reply, but smiled a bit. She understood it perfectly.

"Yes, Miss Callaway?" Slughorn asked, gesturing to her after he saw her raised tattooed skeleton hand in the air.

"But if you increased the concentration of the antidotes to each individual ingredient, couldn't you make it have less volume but the same impact? If not more efficient? And then, having more antidotes to cure even more poison?"

Sirius turned to her with narrowed grey eyes not in criticism, but in thought.

The rest of the student's attention was on Slughorn, curious to hear his answer. Her question proved a very valid point, one they all wished that they could have thought of sooner to ask.

The professor blinked a few times, struggling to answer her question.

"I'll get back to you on that one after class," he said finally, and then continued lecturning.

"Damn, you stumped Sluggy," Sirius whispered to Anneliese. "That takes skills."

"I have a talent for finding holes in logic," she replied simply, jotting down something on her parchment that Sirius couldn't read from the angle she was holding it at.

Black tried to read it for a second, but a withering stare made him stop.

"Classes were never this late on a Friday night at Ilvermorny," Anneliese continued, deftly changing the subject. "Do you guys not have social lives?"

"Sometimes we go out," Sirius shrugged in a low tone. "Plenty to do inside the castle and the grounds."

"Maybe you could-" she started, but was then cut off by Slughorn.

"Enough chitter chatter you two," he said with a slightly amused face. "We wouldn't want to have to split you two up for the last few minutes of class, would we?"

James grinned widely as his two friends started to take notes again, sensing the road that they were on. Sirius, meanwhile, was too busy focused on what she had been about to ask him before their professor had interrupted. He was going to ask her at the end of class, but when he stood up, Anneliese was already yards in front of him with Marlene, Dorcas, and Lily.

"Do you guys want to do something tonight?" Marlene asked, already reading her mind. "I'm bored, and a solid Hogsmeade visit never hurt anyone."

"I agree," Dorcas declared. "Lily, you don't get to say no."

"I wasn't going to," the redhead rolled her eyes as they started to run up to Gryffindor Tower. "Is Alice coming?"

"She's on a date with Frank already," Anneliese told them. "They are the most darlin thing I ever did see."

"Darlin," Marlene drawled in an exaggerated accent as they raced up the stairs to their dorms. "I love your accent so much, A."

"Yes, but more importantly, is this shade of lipstick too dark?" she asked, holding up a dark coral. "I don't really wear makeup much."

Dorcas snatched the tube from her hands as Lily started to change by her bed and squinted her eyes carefully.

"No, you need something much darker," she declared, pulling out a shade of a crimson liquid lipstick from her robe pocket. "Try this, it should offset your freckles."

Anneliese leaned forward in the gold framed mirror and turned back around to Dorcas a few seconds later skeptically.

"Oh my god," Dorcas squealed, clasping her hands in front of her mouth. "You look so fucking perfect. Everyone come look at how perfect Anneliese looks."

Turning from where Marlene was helping her tie the back of her shirt, Lily beamed at her friend.

"You do," the ginger nodded, along with Mckinnon. "Now someone help me decide: pink scarf or yellow scarf?"

Half an hour later, the four girls were all ready to go out with a flurry of giggles and wrapping their arms around one another's waists as they stepped into Hogsmeade.

There were fist sized lanterns strung from thin ropes that were enchanted to brighten or dim with the amount of activity in the cobbled streets below. At the moment, they were glaring incredibly bright with the hordes of people moving in and out of shops and pubs on the Friday night.

"My cheeks feel hot, but in a good way," Marlene declared giddily. "You know what I'm saying?"

"I know," Anneliese replied as she pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her shorts she had insisted on wearing despite the weather. "Who wants one?"

The other three girls, even Lily, all grabbed a cigarette from her pack and leaned against a store window as they watched the crowd go by. They gossiped about all that was going on with them and judged the people's outfits walking by. They laughed.

"Look at that one boy," Dorcas giggled, getsuring loosely. "He looks like a rat died on top of his head and he tried to brush it."

Anneliese and Lily followed her stare and snorted in amusement at who she had pointed out.

"That would be my little brother," a deep voice from behind them sounded.

The four girls whipped around to see a group of boys a year or so older than them standing there.

"Sorry," Anneliese apologized, assuming the worst in them as he hand slid into her back pocket where her wand was.

"Relax, it's fine," he laughed warmly, leaning against the wall next to her. "I agree, no idea why mum ever let him do that to himself."

"Y'all want a cigarette?" Anneliese asked, extending her pack to the other two boys there. "Got plenty."

"Thanks," one of the taller ones smiled as the group of seven started to walk. "You four go to Hogwarts?"

"Yea, we do," Dorcas replied as she stood next to Anneliese. "Never seen any of you guys, what about that?"

They started to ease into laughter, moods loosened by a flask of firewhiskey passed along all of them. The moon made it's path along the arch of the sky, symbolizing the passing of time that none of the new friends even noticed.

There was a kind of beauty in becoming friends with a person you knew good and well you would never see again, a lighthearted feeling only enforced by the alcohol.

"You know, we really better be goin," Anneliese declared. "It's what, one am? Losing any more points from Gryffindor would be catastrophic, we all know that."

"She's right," Marlene said with an apologetic grin. "It was lovely meeting you three!"

"You too, ladies!" one of them called back, and the two groups went their separate ways.

"You know, boys like that give me faith in men," Lily declared as they made their way past the Shack and towards the castle. "Not all of them have to be hitting on you twenty-four seven; some of them just actually are kind and want a laugh."

"Very rare," Anneliese mumbled, her head starting to hurt. "You know, I have an incredibly low alcohol tolerance."

"Doesn't appear so," Dorcas yawned as they started to see the castle. "Drinking out of that flask all the time."

"Well, you know that it's secretly water," Callaway pointed out. "I just want to get to bed already, I'm going to have a killer hangover tomorrow morning."

"Almost there," declared Lily, having drunk the least alcohol out of all of them. "Just a few more corridors, and we're home. Besides- A be careful!"

Her warning was too late, though, and Anneliese tripped over a small piece of statue some first year must have broken off and not bothered to put back up like the annoying little eleven year olds they were.

Luckily, the wall caught her.

Not so luckily, the cold, rough stone corner hurt like a bitch against her partially exposed side.

Anneliese let out a groan as she held the place of impact a bit above her hip bone, leaning against the wall as her head spun.

"Yall go up to the common room," she murmured, waving her hand at them to move. "I just need a few minutes."

"You sure?" Lily asked hesitantly. "You had a lot to drink."

"It's just one doorway to climb through," Anneliese reassured her with a smile. "Go on."

She watched as her friends entered through the Fat Lady, saving her wince until once they got inside.

Anneliese rolled up the hem of her dark grey shirt and saw that the skin was already turning a darker red and was starting to throb from where she had hit the corner. It was most definitely going to bruise.

Well, nothing I can do about it now, she grumbled to herself as she gave the Fat Lady the password and stepped into the common room as smoothly as she could.

Sirius was waiting.

For the past three hours, long after all his friends had gone to bed, Black had been either pacing, studying, or smoking in the crimson and gold room heated by the crackling fire while waiting for Anneliese to get back safely.

No one had asked him to do it besides his consciousness.

When he saw her walk in and shut the portrait hole behind her, a jolt went through his stomach.

Her golden waves were somehow still perfect, but the dark lipstick she was wearing had been smudged a bit on one corner. His eyes flicked down to where her tight, cropped shirt was rolled up a bit with a large patch of red stretching from below her waistband to up where he could see a peek of a light blue bra emerging from under her shirt.

In short, Anneliese looked like she had been hurt.

"Where the hell were you?" Sirius exclaimed, standing up quickly and moving towards Anneliese, who took a few seconds to register his presence. "Do you realize what time it is?"

"I didn't realize you had assigned me a curfew, Grey Eyes," she replied, not letting his name slip from her mouth even when she was drunk.

"I didn't," he snapped back. "You were just out way too late."

"Well then lock me up, officer," Anneliese retorted, putting her hands by her head in false surrender. "Get the damn handcuffs if you care so much."

As part of her stomach was exposed with the motion, they both instantly realized how this sounded.

Sirius was too busy being mad to smirk.

His anger was barely contained.

"That didn't answer my question," Sirius said firmly. "Where were you?"

"I was just in Hogsmeade with Lily, Dorcas, and Marlene," she said truthfully as she looked up at him, slowly lowering her hands. "Is that a good enough answer for you?"

"What happened to your side?" he pressed further, his eyes landing on the red patch again. "Did someone touch you?"

Sirius couldn't explain the rage that was coursing through him. Not at Anneliese, but that he might not have been able to help her if something had happened.

"No, I just fell," she said, stormy blue eyes narrowing. "No one hurt me. The boys were nice."

"What boys?" Sirius hissed, taking a step closer to her as the fire illuminated both of their faces.

"I don't know, I don't even remember their names," Anneliese declared truthfully. "All we did was smoke and drink with them. And laugh. I'm never goin to see them again, it was just a fun time."

"A fun time where you could have been hurt!" Sirius shouted, and Anneliese stepped back a bit. "You're a girl for fuck's sake, you can't just go off in tight clothes and expect every guy to just keep his hands off!"

"I can handle my damn self!" she cried back, hand moving across her knuckles subconsciously. "What is wrong with you?"

"I just want you to stay safe!" he yelled, grey eyes turning to solid metal. "And not be dumb!"

"You're scaring me right now!"

"You scared me when you didn't come back for THREE FUCKING HOURS!"

The heat between them had escalated in less than a minute since she walked in, and both of their shoulders were shaking with breath as they stared at one another with narrowed eyes. Anneliese had her fist clenched tightly, while Sirius still seemed incapable of calming down.

"I'm not even drunk enough to deal with you right now," she declared, hands trembling. "I'm goin to sleep, and you better pray that I don't remember this when I wake up in the mornin."

"Just drink some water," Sirius told her, eyes softening a bit. "It'll help."

Anneliese swallowed heavily as she looked at him, her blurred emotions incapable of deciding if she hated him or liked him right then.

"You shouldn't have waited," she whispered. "You needed to sleep, too."

Sirius looked at her, not really understanding why he had done so either.

"I'd rather you be safe than me sleeping."

Anneliese looked at him curiously before turning up to go to the stairs. Right as she was about to turn around the stone corner, she leaned against the wall with her shoulder and looked back at him.

"Maybe you aren't all that selfish, Grey Eyes."

Sirius smiled a bit.

"Maybe not."

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