The Last Gryffindor (Sirius Black)

Chapter XIV: The Good In Goodbye

• — • — •

He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster.
—FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

• — • — •

Aeliana stepped into the Slytherin common room the next morning to a choir of agonised groans. Those fools looked even worst than she felt, which was actually rather impressive, all things considered. Her head pounded like a drum, and combined with the added guilt drowning her conscience from last night, all she really wanted was to lie down in a nice dark room, blissfully alone, for six to nine months to sort herself out.

Unfortunately, that wasn't likely to happen.

The dungeons gave no hint as to the hour, but assuming she'd returned to the castle at about eleven pm and then passed out for a handful of hours in that abandoned classroom with Sirius — a mistake if she'd ever made one — it was likely now somewhere between three and four in the morning. If that was the case, then Lia was in the clear, because students wouldn't begin the long crawl up the stairs into the common room until around a quarter past eight for class.

The fact that the average Slytherin student didn't even wake up until half an hour before lessons began when they still need to get ready, eat breakfast, and possibly sprint up several flights of stairs to get anywhere in this godforsaken castle was a discussion for another time.

Regardless, it gave her enough time to straighten up the common room up before witnesses surfaced.

"Come on, up you get," Lia sighed, pulling Regulus's arm over her shoulder to drag him to bed.

"Kill me. It would be kinder," he groaned back, passively fighting her attempts at relocation.

"Don't tempt me," she grunted, hoisting him onto his feet with one large pull.

Slowly, they made their way up the stairs — for all the help he provided she might as well have been dragging a corpse — until finally she dropped him unceremoniously on his four-poster.

"That wasn't very nice," he complained into his pillow, just loud enough for her to hear, but not wake any others.

"Well, I'm not nice," Lia whispered back, stomping down to go collect someone else. "Be glad I didn't toss you on the floor."

When she stepped back into the common room, Lia was surprised to find Severus roused from his slumber, picking up bottles of fire whisky and whatever else they'd had stolen from the Malfoy's cellar. When they were all collected into a pile, he effortlessly performed a vanishing charm, ridding all evidence of their crime.

"I heard you come in," he said, when he noticed her making her way down the steps.

"Sorry if I woke you," Lia replied, slightly on edge. Did he want to know where she was? He certaintly wasn't a keynote member of the Sirius Black Fan Club. "I think I must have passed out on the way here."

He nodded, tidying up a few more disheveled objects — a misplaced couch, an overturned chair — before taking hold of one of Barty's arms and spearing Lia with a look that clearly said, A little help?

Together they ferried Barty and the twins up to their appropriate rooms, though Lia had to take Alecto all the way down the seventh flights of stairs alone, due to the charm keeping boys from the girls' rooms.