Friday
The next morning came too early for Minerva.
She stretched, jumping up a bit when her foot came into contact with something fluffy. Fluffy and moving! A dog! What the hell was a dog doing in her bed?!
Minerva was about to call for her roommates when the dog turned into a human. Sirius! The events of the previous night came crashing back and Minerva started laughing like mad.
Sirius tilted his head to the side and watched her with a smirk until she calmed down.
"No, I'm not a dream. I'm real," he teased. "Even though I understand why one may think that."
Minerva rolled her eyes, but the smile on her face showed that she wasn't really annoyed.
"As it is Friday I have classes today. I am going to the library and bring some books over here so you can start the research. I'll join you as soon as I can," she announced suddenly.
"Are you telling me, I am supposed to stay here all day?" Sirius asked, frowning. He hated being stuck.
"Exactly. You said yourself that nobody should see you," Minerva replied and ran a hand through her hair, not looking at him. "I am going to take a shower and get some breakfast. I'll eat downstairs but I am going to get you something as well. Any preferences?"
Sirius wasn't too happy with the arrangement but gave her a list of his preferred foods, that made her roll her eyes again, anyway. After all, she had a point and he really didn't fancy the thought of running into his dear mother on accident.
Minerva nodded and left the bed, careful that the curtains hid Sirius at all times.
The young man listened to her little chat with her room-mates in silence and had snickered a few times at her remarks. Minerva McGonagall has been sassy her whole life as it seemed.
When they finally left the room, Sirius fell face-first onto the bed and groaned. He hadn't slept much during the night, drifting in and out of sleep constantly. The situation was just so weird. He had shared a bed with his teacher! Even though she was currently his age and kinda cute... No, he didn't think that, did he?
Was it even wrong considering sass-master Minerva McGonagall as a 17-year old cute? He didn't know and he really didn't want to find out. As long as he found her only 'cute', everything was fine. Even though his friends would laugh at him if he ever told them. He was sure of that.
Sirius wiggled and rolled around in bed, somehow really uncomfortable and pulled a pillow over his head just as the door to the room opened again.
Minerva walked over to her bed and peered inside the curtains. "What the hell are you doing?" she asked with amusement as she saw Sirius tangled up in the sheets and with a pillow hiding his face.
"I don't know. I am just really bad at dealing with boredom?" Sirius grinned at her as he lifted the pillow to look a her.
Minerva shook her head in disbelief and pulled the curtains back in place. "I'm going to the Great Hall now. The others will come back shortly so stay put and don't do anything stupid," she said as she walked towards the door.
Sirius sighed and pulled the pillow back over his face. This was way to weird.
He was half asleep again when Minerva came back with food and books. She nudged him slightly to wake him up before she pulled the foods he had requested and a selection of books that could prove helpful from her bag. "Enchanted," she said when she saw his surprised look. Sirius nodded and dug in, making Minerva giggle.
"What?" he asked with full mouth. "Hogwarts food is way better than the weird stuff we have at home. And I don't have to fear that it's poisoned," he added bitterly, missing the look Minerva gave him.
"I have to go to class," Minerva said as she looked away from the boy, or rather young man, stuffing his face on her bed. "See you later."
She was up and away before Sirius as much as opened his mouth to reply.
He stared at the empty space she had occupied just moments ago, wondering what he did wrong. Was it the remark about his home? Probably. It was always something involving his family. Sirius sighed and put his unfinished piece of toast back on the plate. He had lost his appetite.
The young man run a hand through his hair, grimacing as he got stuck thanks to it being tangled. He needed a shower. He was sweaty and probably stinking as well.
Sirius crawled out of bed and looked around the room curiously. The girls' stuff was scattered all around the room: books, clothes, beauty products and various school supplies could be found on the desks and chairs or on top of their trunks. Sirius snatched an elastics from one of the trunks and put it on his wrist. He had forgotten his own back at home and if he wanted to read later he would need it to hold his hair out of his eyes.
Sirius walked over to the bathroom door and peaked inside. It was just like the boys' bathroom he shared with his friends except that the shower was missing. There was a bathtub instead of it. Sirius rolled his eyes and walked over to let the water in. He studied the various little containers in the room with interest before adding some of the bathing salt he found in one of them to the water. He stripped quickly and climbed into the tub to wash himself. Sitting in the hot water, Sirius spaced out, thinking about what to do. Sure, he had to go through all the books and find a way to get back to his time. But there were other matters as well. What about Voldemort? There was no war in this time. There was no threat. But the man was alive, maybe already plotting. Should he tell Minerva about that? Should he warn her? Should he tell somebody else? But whom? He didn't trust Dumbledore. He never had and he certainly wasn't going to start now. The old man was hiding something and Sirius didn't trust people who were obviously hiding something on principle. That was why he had had a rocky start with Remus back in their first year.
Sirius submerged, bringing himself back into reality and onto the topic on hand. He had to do something. He had gotten a unique chance to save so many lives. He had to tell Minerva. She would be able to change things if she knew. After all, she was one of the most skilled witches and wizards he had ever met, maybe the most skilled one.
Sirius massaged the shampoo he took from one of the bottles into his scalp as he thought about what exactly he was going to tell her. That was a difficult question. He didn't know much himself. After all, he was only a teenager.
Sirius sighed and washed out the shampoo out of his hair. He stood up, realising that he had no towel and cursed before climbing out of the tub and getting his wand to conjure one.
After rubbing himself dry, Sirius transfigured the towel into a pair of fresh boxers and collected his clothes before walking back to Minerva's bed. He dumped his dirty clothes on the bed and sat down, before closing the curtains around himself.
Sirius pulled his hair into a ponytail and picked up the first book, not bothering to put on any more clothes. He wouldn't be disturbed for a while after all.
That's how Minerva found him several hours and in his case, several books, later. She blushed fiercely when she stuck her head inside the curtains, earning herself a very confused look from Sirius. He had been so absorbed into his reading, he hadn't heard her come in in the first place.
Only as she threw a black robe in his size at him, he understood what was going on and shot her one of his trademark grins.
Minerva huffed and sat down on the other side of the bed as he put on the robes. "Did you find something?" she asked and sighed when Sirius shook his head.
"I'm through almost all of the books. Only three are left," he muttered. Minerva looked down at the large pile he had already discarded, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"Seems like we have to make a trip to the Restricted Section," she announced without any enthusiasm. She had a passion for both knowledge and mischief, but books that yelled at her weren't exactly her cup of tea. They caused her headaches.
"Why the hell is it always the Restricted Section of the Library?" Sirius questioned as he leaned back. "You want to make Polyjuice potion? Have fun in the Restricted Section. Become an animagus? Of course you have to go to the Restricted Section. Find out what the stupid pendant is and how it works? Restricted Section. I am not even kidding when I say that I've spend more time there than in the main part of the library. And I'm not even allowed there yet!"
"You are not allowed there yet?" Minerva frowned. "You are younger than me?"
Sirius laughed at that. "I came from the future, of course I'm younger than you!"
Minerva rolled her eyes and punched him lightly into his arm. "That's not what I meant!"
He snickered, but answered nevertheless. "I'm Sixteen. Just finished my fifth year and O.W.L.s."
Minerva nodded and grabbed one of the remaining books to skim its contents. She had to admit that she was surprised. She had thought that he was older, maybe in his seventh year. He looked so tired.
"Nothing," Minerva muttered and put the book away to take the last one, sure that there would be no information on the pendant or something similar either.
To her disappointment she had been right and the book didn't contain anything useful. She put the book aside and looked at Sirius, who had been staring at her. "What?"
"Nothing. I'm thinking," he replied without looking away.
Minerva didn't say anything at that and settled on watching him instead. He would speak up eventually - she was sure about that.
But he didn't. At least right then.
Instead, Sirius averted his eyes and started piling the books. "When are we going to the library?" he asked when all the books were in neat piles between them.
"After most of the people went to sleep," Minerva said. "Till then we should both try to nap. After all, we probably won't get any tonight – I fear we'll have to spend several nights going through the Restricted section."
"You know, you don't have to help me," Sirius looked up from the books and straight at her.
"I said I would. And I'm going to keep my word," Minerva glared at Sirius and started packing the books back into her bag. "By the way, are you hungry?"
Sirius was confused for a moment by the abrupt change of topic but realized soon enough that it was already late afternoon and he had had no lunch. He had only nibbled on the remains of his breakfast during the day.
"Uh, oh, no, I'm fine. Thanks," he smiled at her. "I'll be fine if we get something from the kitchen on our way to the library later."
Minerva shot him a sceptical look as he was way too skinny for it to be healthy in her opinion but didn't say anything and put away the last of the books before she closed her bag and let it fall out of bed.
"Minnie?" a female voice came from the room. "Are you there?"
Minerva rolled her eyes and grimaced at Sirius before she crawled out of bed, once again very careful to hide Sirius from prying eyes.
"What is it, Abigail?" she asked as she straightened her skirt, tilting her head as she looked at her room-mate.
"Are you okay?" Abigail asked. "You are acting strange. You seem to be in a hurry and your bed curtains are drawn shut. That's quite unusual."
Minerva cursed her too-observed friend silently. What should she say? "You know, a girl has her secrets," she winked at Abigail, hoping that would spare her more explanations.
"Are you planning something?" Abigail asked with amusement. "Another prank?"
"Even if I was, I wouldn't tell you," Minerva replied. "If I did, I would have to give you detention for planning a prank."
Sirius could hear an exasperated sigh from Abigail. "You are no fun!" her voice was accusing. "I'm bored and need a distraction. Let me in on it!"
It wasn't hard to guess that Minerva was rolling her eyes at that moment. "How about you distract yourself with a book? Or two?" she said. "That way you won't have to copy my essays on Sunday evening."
Abigail didn't respond and marched out of the room, slamming the door as she left. Minerva shook her head and crawled back onto the bed.
"It seems it would kill her to spend some time with school work instead getting on people's nerves. I get that she needs attention, but I am not even the person she wants the attention from!" Minerva complained. She hated whining. "Would it kill her to approach Dorian?"
"Maybe. We can test it out," Sirius joked.
"Test it out? Like set them up and see what happens?" Minerva's eyes lit up. "That's brilliant! It provides the perfect cover up and she'll finally stop bothering me whenever she is too shy to talk to him! And some of her concentration may come back!"
Sirius tilted his head, a deadpan expression on his face before he started laughing. "She'll either hate or love you. Depending on how it works out."
"I believe she will love me, judging by the looks Dorian gives her," Minerva snickered and stretched out on the bed, Sirius mimicking her actions.
They lye there next to each other in a comfortable silence, both thinking about how to bring the love-birds together at first but eventually they started to make random more or less sane suggestions on how to accomplish the feat.
At some point, they stopped talking about the match-making and shifted to other topics. They talked and talked, their noses only inches from the others as they had moved to face each other at some point.
They joked and laughed, deliberately ignoring darker topics to not ruin the mood. Time flew like that and Sirius finally found peace for the first time since the summer holiday started three weeks ago. He hadn't been able to see James and the others and the situation at home had gotten worse with every day. Walburga was constantly yelling at him, which put a strain on Regulus and his father ignored his children's suffering as always. The war didn't make the whole situation better.
When Sirius realized that Minerva was giving him a concerned look, he shook his head, indicating that it was nothing.
"What time is it?" he asked, aware that he had ruined the mood and cursed himself for it.
Minerva reached out to grab the alarm clock from her bedside table and held it in front of Sirius' face. He noted with surprise that it was already past midnight.
"Is it safe to go to the library now? I mean, in my time half of the house would be still chillin' in the common room, but this are the fifties-"
"Oh, shut it!" Minerva nudged Sirius with her foot, but there was a small smile on her lips. "I don't know what they told you, but I'm pretty sure there is a party going on in the common room."
"The one who told me that the people during your school time were responsible and behaved well was actually you," Sirius teased and sat up.
Minerva snorted and followed shut, curiosity written all over her face. "Tell me more about that," she demanded. For her to say something like that… She really wanted to know what prompted her to tell such a ridiculous lie.
"Later. I promise," Sirius grinned at her. "It will be funnier that way."
Minerva huffed but didn't fight him. "If you want to go to the library get dressed. I have a plan how to sneak you trough the common room," she commanded instead and explained the details as Sirius put his trousers and shoes on.
He snickered and obediently turned into a dog. Minerva cast a disillusionment charm on him and they walked together out of the dorm and into the common room.
The disillusionment charm didn't work as well as James' invisibility cloak would have, but as most of the people in the common room were tipsy if not completely wasted and didn't look for him, the spell was more than effective.
Both Minerva and Sirius believed that it would hide Sirius perfectly and felt therefore confident enough to plan a little prank.
It was simple enough: as soon as they descended the stairs, Sirius ran of into the crowd and started licking people's hands on random, while Minerva cast a charm to make all the alcohol in the room change the taste with every sip, going through all the flavours of Bertie Bott's every flavour beans, in the meanwhile while walking through the common room as if everything was perfectly normal. Thanks to Sirius causing chaos, nobody had seen her cast the spell and when he returned to her side, a few steps away from the portrait, she had been long finished.
"Whaa- Why does my firewhiskey taste like lemon?"
"Strawberry-vodka? How?"
"I got spinach! I hate spinach!"
Minerva smirked to herself at the various exclamations as she walked out of the common room. The spell worked properly and had therefore the potential to be used in a larger scale.
When they turned around the corner, just away from the prying eyes of the Fat lady, Minerva turned into a cat. She started running and Sirius chased after her through the empty corridors and to the library.
Minerva transformed back first and lifted the disillusionment charm so Sirius could shift back as well. Neither was sure if the animagus form interfered with other magic and they had agreed to not risk it.
They started laughing even before they managed to catch their breaths, while trying to shush the other at the same time. They had to be careful or they would be found but the prank had worked out wonderfully and the faces and exclamations of the Gryffindor students have been hilarious.
"I am pretty sure they are playing some sort of drinking game with your spell by now," Sirius said after they calmed down. They made their way to the restricted section and Minerva grinned at him.
"So what? Pranks are about fun after all, aren't they?"
Sirius shook his head, hardly suppressing his laughter. "Yeah. What I tried to say is, that the spell is brilliant," he glanced at her through his bangs. He had let his hair loose when they had lied down.
"Thanks." Minerva didn't notice his look and continued walking down the corridor between the aisles to the back of the library.
When she arrived, she turned to look at Sirius, expectantly. "Where do you want to start?" she asked.
"To be honest? I don't know. Maybe we should work through the shelves and check every book even remotely related to the topic," Sirius shrugged, his smile long gone. He hated these books. They were full of dangerous and disturbing things. The only thing his mother did right with his upbringing was to push him away from any kind of dark arts, even though it had been the direct opposite of what she had wanted to achieve.
"I'll start from the right if that's fine with you," Minerva said and started working when Sirius nodded. He took the left and they worked in silence. They read each book title and pulled out these that sounded promising before checking the register and sometimes even the text. When a book felt weird, they cast a silencing charm over it before they tried to read it. Both had had rather unpleasant encounters with screaming books in the past.
One of the books even snapped at Sirius but Minerva had managed to stupefy it before it could do any harm. At that, Sirius had smiled at her gratefully and they continued working in silence.
Some three or four hours later, Sirius was struggling to hold his eyes open. The letters were swimming in front of his eyes. He had spent the whole day reading and his eyes were ridiculously tired.
He pulled the elastics out of his hair again and ran a hand through it. "We should quit for today," he said to Minerva who was skimming the contents of a book. "I may fall asleep otherwise and you would have to carry me all the way to the Gryffindor tower."
"Or I could leave you here," she answered without looking up.
"You wouldn't," Sirius pouted.
"No, I truly wouldn't. But I would levitate you and maybe accidentally let you hit a wall or two," she looked up at him with a grin.
Sirius laughed and stood up from the chair he had been sitting on and walked over to Minerva to snatch the book out of her hand and put it back on its place.
"I was reading that!" she complained, but didn't sound too serious. "If we don't find anything it will be your fault for putting that book away!"
Sirius rolled his eyes and scooped Minerva from her chair. "You can finish it tomorrow. But if we don't leave now, you will really have to levitate me back," he said and carried her bride-stile to the front of the library.
He let her down at the door and yawned demonstratively.
Minerva shook her head in disbelief. "You are impossible."
"Took you long enough to figure that out," Sirius laughed and turned into a dog. Minerva followed shut and they ran back to the Gryffindor tower where everything went just like the night before. Sirius was able to follow Minerva through the hole behind the portrait and up to the girls' dorm without a problem and they fell into the bed completely exhausted.
"I'm so glad that tomorrow is Saturday," Minerva sighed.
"Technically tomorrow is Sunday," Sirius teased and Minerva hit him weakly.
"Shut up," she said without any malice. "And sleep. You were the one who said that he would fall asleep on the spot if we didn't move."
Sirius laughed. "Good night, Minnie," he whispered.
"Night, Sirius."
