There and Black Again

He could hear voices.

Sirius groaned and licked his dry lips. He'd been having this horrible nightmare about dueling with his cousin Bellatrix in some large room at the Ministry. He was just about to scream out another curse when Bellatrix had hit him with one and he'd flown backwards through some strange veil. Everything went black and then he woke up.

After a moment of laying with his eyes closed, Sirius slowly opened his eyes. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the light and for him to realize that he wasn't in his bedroom at Grimmauld Place. Actually, he thought, it looked a bit like the bed hangings he'd had when he attended Hogwarts. Except, the hangings he was looking at weren't the royal red he remembered waking up to practically every day for seven years. These were a deep green with silver trim instead.

"Oy, Black! Get up would ya? We're already late for breakfast."

Sirius frowned. Where did he know that voice from?

Just then the curtains were thrown open. "I said get up!"

"Eh!"

"Oh shut up," it was Lucius Malfoy. "I don't look that bad."

"Wha... Who..." Sirius pulled the blankets up to his chin. "Where the hell am I?"

"Where the hell do you think you are?" The younger Lucius asked, his hand on his hip and his eyes narrowed. "Now get out of bed and get ready or we'll be late for Potions."

"It must be some kind of time warp," Sirius muttered to himself, still looking like a deer in headlights. "Some kind of really warped time warp..."

Lucius quirked an eyebrow, beginning to worry about his best friend's mental state. "Okay, I know we got smashed last night, but I didn't think that firewhiskey would kill quite this many brain cells."

"I hate you," Sirius said, confused.

Lucius rolled his eyes. "You were the one who kept knocking back shots. I had to start filling the glasses with water after you threw up for the second time."

"What are you talking about?" Sirius asked.

"Last night," Lucius said, waving his hands as if it would make Sirius remember. "After the quidditch game? Remember? You got it in your head to go head to head with Cissy? Any of this ring a bell?"

"The last thing I remember is falling through the veil," Sirius said timidly.

"Oh," Lucius said with a smile. "That was probably when we put you to bed for the first time. You weren't too plastered then. But you still fell backwards, stiff as a bored, through your curtains and onto your bed. We thought you were out but then you showed up in the common room twenty minutes later completely naked."

Sirius raised an eyebrow.

"Don't worry," Lucius said with a smirk. "We only let you run about naked for a few minutes. Goyle and Snape tackled you to the ground after you tried to hump Lydia's leg and Cissy forced your pants on."

Sirius paled upon hearing his cousin had to wrestle his pants on him.

"If you get up I'll tell you the whole story," Lucius said as if he were making a deal with a child.

Sirius nodded slowly and climbed out of his bed. He looked at Lucius uncertainly and, after receiving a point in the right direction, made his way into the bathroom. As soon as the door shut behind him, Sirius flew to the mirror and shrieked.

He was him, only he was the him from twenty years ago. There were no battle scars, no worry lines, no sunken cheeks, and his eyes weren't half dead from the years in Azkaban. He looked just like he had when he'd attended Hogwarts twenty years before, except, Sirius scoffed, he'd never have worn silk silver boxers with his last name embroidered on the butt.

It took Sirius nearly twenty minutes to calm down enough to get ready for classes. When he'd finally stepped out of the bathroom a half-hour after he'd gone in, Lucius' face was red and there was a vein sticking out from his forehead.