The Last Gryffindor (Sirius Black)

Chapter IV: Arguing With an Idiot

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Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience
-GREG KING

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Eleven hours, three books, and two mental breakdowns later, Aeliana still hadn't found what she was looking for. Granted, she wasn't entirely sure what she was looking for, maybe an "Ah hah!" moment, but she certainly hadn't found it yet.

Her cat, however, was waging a constant crusade to capture her attention.

"I don't love you enough for this," Lia told her after must have been the tenacious feline's fiftieth time jumping onto her book and laying luxuriously across the pages.

Lia leaned forward to massage her fluffy, orange scalp, when a movement in her periphery caught her attention.

Heart hammering in her chest, she leapt to her feet, snatching her wand from off the redwood desk. She made a vain attempt to slow her breathing and ducked back into an alcove behind her. She silently cursed herself for only lighting the one candle this afternoon when she walked inside, since it was now nearing midnight and she could barely see a thing.

This is how people get murdered in those silly muggle movies Lilly forces me to watch, she chastised herself.

Well, as much as she was tempted to, she wasn't going to be like them and ask "Who's there?" to give away her location. Perhaps Voldemort and his followers actually did take offence to her calling them cowards, just like Sirius said they would. Some people take things so personally.

From off in the shadows, a short figure shuffled forward, but instead of sending Lia into a cursing frenzy, her shoulders slumped and she lowered her wand.

"You know, I don't actually own a dog, Sirius."

"What are you talking about?" he replied in his most annoying, faux flirtatious voice, morphing back into a man in the blink of an eye. "You already own me, don't you?"

He winked suggestively, trying to lighten the mood, but, like the last time they'd met, she wasn't having it.

"How did you manage to get inside? This place should be locked up tighter than Azkaban," she asked, annoyed.

"And what? Are you the resident dementor?" He grinned at her deepening scowl.

"I'll do more than suck out your soul if you don't get out of here in the next three seconds..." she muttered back murderously.

"Sweet pea, I'm counting on it."

Aeliana pushed past him, perhaps a little more roughly than necessary, to go check if she left a door unlocked, even though she knew she hadn't.

"Would you stop coming up with these stupid nicknames and get the hell out?" she exclaimed, as he followed her through the house while she double checked the locks and enchantments. "I thought I made it abundantly clear that I don't want you around, so just tell me how you got in and LEAVE."

"Well, sweetums, you're always telling me to piss off, so, as far as I'm concerned, nothing has really changed," he explained, pretending to examine his nail beds. "And as for how I got in, if I told you, you'd make it so I'm locked out, and we can't have that, can we?"

"Did it ever occur to you that OTHER people could use that same way to get access to my house?" she growled after having found no known breaches in the house's defences.

"Let's just say all the charms surrounding this place aren't fine tuned to keep this handsome dog out." His coquettish smile dimmed when Lia's hard expression didn't soften. "Fine! Remember that old passage you showed me when my parents would bring me over to play with you when we were, like, seven?"