GOOD DOG || Sirius Black

(Five: Requiem)

Alex.

Hated.

Transfiguration.

What was even the point in it? When, in the life of Alex Fawley, would she ever need to turn a cocktail glass into a rat? It was ridiculous. Everything was ridiculous.

The words on the page jumbled in front of her, letters rearranging themselves into words that didn't make sense. Alex squinted to try and reorganise them, but they only floated around in front of her, stubbornly refusing to form anything that would be recognisable from looking at a dictionary. Alex massaged her forehead with her palm to try and clear the headache building behind her eyebrows, but that only succeeded in aiding her to lose her place.

Alex glanced absently at her watch: It was only six AM. She had been there for just an hour. Funny, she could have taken so many pictures in that time, and the sunrise would be making it's debut over the Forbidden Forest in half an hour, well enough time to grab breakfast and set up everything that she needed to...

No, she would regret not doing the work later, when her mother opened those results and sent her that disappointed expression, when her twin brother came back with perfection written all over his letter. Even though she worked twice as hard as him. Even though she didn't want a ministry job.

Squeak!

The sound of the chair across from her being pulled back startled Alex out of her thoughts. She leapt out of her seat by instinct, heart beating fast enough to beat Sonic the Hedgehog in a race through Green Hill Zone.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Can I sit down?" Sirius Back was talking to her from beneath a curtain of black goth hair.

Alex didn't move.

Maybe if she didn't move, he wouldn't be able to see her.

Or was that a T-Rex?

...

...

...

He was still looking at her.

Waiting.

Alex coughed, and shuffled slightly, "Um, yeah. I was... I was just leaving anyway."

"Oh." Was it her imagination, or did Sirius seem disappointed?

Alex advanced hesitantly, grabbing the book she had been reading and retreating again. Sirius was still watching her. In his left hand, he held two small bags that Alex recognised as being the ones the school provided for taking food from the hall. Alex wondered who he was planning on meeting here. She was glad she dodged the bullet of having to awkwardly try very hard to look like she wasn't listening into their conversation.

"Um, Bye." Alex could feel Sirius's eyes on her as she made her retreat, like a knife hovering between her shoulder blades. She increased her pace. This was what the rest of Gryffindor house tactfully referred to as 'running away'.

Alex Fawley did not want to know why Sirius Black was trying to sit at her table, not when there was a whole library of options out there, the majority of them empty. Maybe today was upside down day. Alex squinted at her reflection in the glass of a window as she passed: Still scrawny, still skinny, mousey brown hair still falling into dull green eyes. Nope. Alex was still as plain as she had been yesterday.

The more likely answer to the question of Sirius Black was that finally, after pushing the limit with how many times she could mess up in front of them for the last time, the Marauders had decided to set their scope on Alex for their next prank.

"Alex!"

Alex nearly wept with relief at the sound of the familiar voice. Logan grinned at her as he made his way over, clearly overlooking the panic on her face.