The Last Gryffindor (Sirius Black)

Chapter XV: Alecto Carrow

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Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.
—OSCAR WILDE

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"Lia..."

Lia ground her teeth at the sound of that patronising, sing-song tone of voice calling her name.

" Lia... Oh there you are! You're coming with me."

Just as Alecto's brunette head peaked around the bookshelf, Lia slammed her book shut and shoved it indiscriminately back into a random spot between two books of vastly differing heights She glanced up, smiling, as though just noticing Alecto for the first time.

"Is there something the matter?" she asked, hoping the confusion in her voice masked the annoyance boiling beneath it. Usually, a person couldn't force Alecto into the library to save her life.

"Oh no!" Alecto waved a hand dismissively, brushing away the mere thought. "We just have things to discuss outside of present company,"

At the word "present", she looked pointedly at several of the braver Ravenclaw students who'd been driven to sit near where Lia had set herself up due to their own seat availability issues. Given that Lia was now treated as some sort of leper by most of the student body, it truly reflected their desperation to ace their upcoming O.W.L.'s.

"Meet us in the common room in, let's say, three hours? It should be cleared out by then," Alecto said after a moments thought.

"And if it isn't?" Lia asked tentatively.

"I'll send them to sleep the hard way."

Lia wasn't sure what exactly she meant by that, but sincerely hoped everyone would be safely in their beds by then, for their own sakes.

"Sure thing," Lia replied, not feeling sure at all.

Something about Alecto's assertiveness sent alarm bells blaring through Lia's head, but she'd been alone with them plenty of times after hours at this point and lived to tell the tale.

"See you then!" Alecto flashed one last cat-like smile, before doing an about-face and skipping off.

There were perhaps two people in this world that Lia feared more than Lord Voldemort, and that grinning, cackling witch earned a spot near the top of the list. Something about her set Lia's skin crawling. She gave off the distinct impression that she'd laugh in Lia's face while stabbing her in the back, but who was Lia to judge, anyway, when that was also her own plan for all of Voldemort's supporters, for Alecto and Amycus and Barty and everyone else?

She would kill them all.

Three hours later, after, at Lia's inquiry, a startled fifth year claimed it to be nearly nine, she grudgingly packed all her things and departed from the library. She rifled through each book in that area a dozen times over anyways. Not a single one on Horcruxes, even in the restricted section. While she commended Dumbledore for not keeping books on such Dark Magic laying around for impressionable students to happen upon, it was frustrating. She needed those for herself, damnit! This impressionable student was in dire need of that Dark Magic!

Lia resigned herself to the fact that she would need to leave the grounds to find anything useful, but with the way the Deputy Headmistress was breathing down her neck recently, it seemed risky. McGonagall already rewarded her with enough detentions to last until her great-grandchildren graduated Hogwarts and Lia had no desire to add more to that list.