the lucky one, sirius black

12

chapter twelve

Murphy failed to tell Fabian Prewett that she was also bringing two other boys on their date.

Needless to say; Fabian's grinning, freckled face soon dropped when Murphy walked towards the bottom of the Gryffindor tower stairs with Regulus Black stauntering on her right and Barty Crouch grinning to her left with a half drunk bottle of fire whiskey clutched in his hand. Regulus' black hair was neatly-messy as ringlets curled around his ears, his hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans and his shoes were being dragged against the floor as he failed to pick his feet up. Barty on the other hand was all smiles, with his arm loosely snaked around Murphy's shoulder (it looked odd to say the least, as Murphy is a fair few inches taller than him), he'd had a little bit too much alcohol before leaving the dorm so as he walked, he had a slight bounce in his step.

"Hello," Murphy smiled sweetly as they approached Fabian, who was leaning against the bannister. He was wearing dark jeans and a striped, blue and pink button up shirt which Murphy thought looked lovely with his fiery hair.

"Um. Hello," he said, his brown eyes darting between the two other boys.

"Oh, don't worry about them." Murphy told him as she followed his cautious eyes. "They'll piss off when they get inside."

Regulus scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"Right. Okay." Fabian said, a small smile finally graced his face. "Shall we go, then?"

Murphy gave him an excited nod and walked beside him up the stairs whilst Regulus and Barty walked a few steps behind them.

Even from the bottom of the moving staircases you could hear the gentle thud of music coming from the busy Gryffindor common room. If Murphy heard correctly, she could just about tell that someone was playing 'Heroes,' and Murphy didn't doubt for a second that the birthday boy was responsible for that specific choice in song.

"So," Fabian said, his arm gently knocking against Murphy's for a brief second, "Has James got you babysitting now."

Murphy looked up at him. "What do you mean?"

Fabian looked at her blankly for a moment before shaking his head. "You've got Simon and Garfunkel giggling like children behind you, I can't imagine you'll be taking your eyes off of them whilst they're drunk and your brother and Sirius are in the same room."

"I'm not babysitting them." Murphy said bluntly. "They can look after themselves and I can't imagine they'll cause a scene, especially when Barty is one sniff of butterbeer away from being sick all over his shoes."

"And besides, I'm sure Sirius wouldn't want to start something at his own party." She finished, just as they reached the portrait of the fat lady, who looked utterly miserable to be letting in another flurry of underage school children to a party riddled with copious amounts of alcohol and presumably, drugs.

Fabian nodded, though his face showed that he didn't agree or disagree with Murphy. He opened his mouth to tell the portrait the password before his lips suddenly smacked together. He turned to Murphy and gave her a sheepish smile.

"I'm not going to ransack your common room if I hear the password," she told him.

"It's not that," Fabian said slowly as he remembered what James had told everybody in the Order at the start of September. He then locked eyes with Regulus, who gave the redhead a dirty look, and a light bulb practically began to glow above his head. "It's your friends. Obviously they can't know the password."

Murphy turned around. "Oh right," she said quietly. Regulus was still screwing his face up at the seventh year, and Barty was trying to swig the rest of the fire whiskey - neither of them looked particularly interested in finding out the password to the common room. Nevertheless, she walked a few steps down so she was standing with the two boys instead. She held her hand out and snatched the fire whiskey out of Barty's clammy hands.