The Last Gryffindor (Sirius Black)

Chapter I: To Lose One Parent

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To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
-OSCAR WILDE

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The day started off as just another normal Thursday, or at least as normal as it gets at Hogwarts, which admittedly wasn't saying very much. Double Potions and then double Herbology. Yuck and yuck, no offense intended to Slughorn or Sprout. The week was almost over, however, so things were undoubtedly looking up. Aeliana already made plans for the weekend to sneak off campus with Sirius and a few others through some hidden passageway they had recently unearthed, despite Dumbledore's numerous warnings. The number of mysterious disappearances had been increasing exponentially those last few months, but they told themselves the likelihood of anything happening in Hogsmeade, of all places, was slim enough to be worth the risk, and they would all be together, so everything would be fine.

Probably.

Sirius and James were idiots, after all, and idiocy didn't count for nothing.

Turned out it wasn't their own safety they needed to worry about.

Aeliana had been too embroiled in painstakingly chopping her pickled bat spleen into precisely even pieces— Professor Slughorn had warned them that uneven slices could turn the potion from a gnome repellent into a hair growing solution, and she had no intention whatsoever of spending the rest of the day trying to rid herself of a beard— to notice Professor McGonagall marching into the classroom.

"Ms. Gryffindor."

Aeliana jerked reflexively at the interruption, knife slashing down upon her glorified bird organ in a diagonal motion, ruining fifteen minutes of maddening work. She stared at the spoiled fruits of her labor in undiluted horror.

"Ms. Gryffindor," Professor McGonagall repeated, breaking Aeliana grudgingly from her distressed state, the professor's tone uncharacteristically tender.

"Yes, Professor?" Aeliana scrambled to her feet, bench scraping loudly against the floor behind her.

Everyone went quiet. It wasn't everyday that McGonagall personally came to reprimand someone in another professor's class. Aeliana could practically sense all the ears perking up, fishing for gossip. The gossip-mill has been rather lacklustre in recent days, leaving many in need of thee fix.

"Please, follow me. No need to grab your things," McGonagall added, as Aeliana started packing her bag. McGonagall peered around the room over thin-rimmed spectacles. "Evans, at the end of class, return Gryffindor's things to your dormitory."

"Yes, professor," Lilly responded, arching a brow at Aeliana.

Aeliana shrugged. She had no clue either.

Without further ado, McGonagall swept out of the room, leaving Aeliana to follow. Across the room, Sirius shot her a quizzical look.

"Is little-miss-perfect actually in trouble?" he asked, deliberately exaggerating his shock. "James, quick! Mark today on your calendar, because this has to be a first."

"Ha. Ha." Aeliana rolled her eyes, before striding for the door. She paused at the frame to send him one last warning glare, saying, "If I find out this is your fault, you'll be sorry."

To her surprise, it was not to her own office that McGonagall guided her to, but Dumbledore's. Aeliana couldn't help but ask herself what she could possibly have done in the past few days to warrant a punishment directly from the headmaster. Truth be told, she actually had done quite a few things to potentially warrant Headmaster-ly intervention over the years, but she was careful enough to make sure she was never caught.