Prelude to Moondance

The next morning, Sariyah and Lily sat at the far end of the Gryffindor table, eating breakfast and trying to finish up the last bits of homework they had left for the morning. The Great Hall ceiling, bewitched to resemble the weather outside, was a foggy gray color, with clouds foreboding much rain to come.

Sariyah was muttering quietly to herself, scribbling feverishly on a piece of parchment. "This is due in about 14 minutes, and I've got a whole three inches to write yet," she moaned, as though three inches were three feet.

"Three inches is nothing. And Sariyah, I'm impressed," Lily said, surveying her friend over a piece of muffin. "Your writing is still so neat even though you're rushing."

"This?" asked Sariyah, pausing to gaze over her writing. "This is horrible. I can't read it, I don't know what I'm doing--thinking someone else is going to be able to read this, especially Flitwick..." She scribbled faster, and finally, within about five or six minutes, she had procured enough fluff into the remaining bit of her Charms essay to cover the last three inches. "Phew," she breathed, tucking away the parchment in her bag.

"I wonder where the others are?" asked Lily, staring around the hall, as though expecting them to be at another house table.

"They'd better come soon, they're going to miss Potions...like they did last week," Sariyah mumbled, pulling a tray of toast towards her, a part of her feeling guilty that she had not chided them about it more. As she was layering jelly on the toast, three tired pairs of feet shuffled across the Great Hall towards where the girls were sitting.

"Well, about time you showed up," Lily said, smiling as she looked at James, Sirius, and Peter as they sat down and began helping themselves to breakfast. "You look very tired this morning, James."

James looked up and grinned sheepishly at Lily. "Trouble sleeping," he murmured, reaching over and grabbing her hand instead of the nearby plate of bacon. "I was dreaming of you."

Lily blushed pink and giggled, her green eyes sparkling. Sirius had not a single remark at this behavior, just rubbing his tired eyes and shoving a spoon of porridge into his mouth. Peter did the same, except with a bowl of cereal.

"Decided on coming to Potions today, oh terrible two?" snarled a voice behind him. Severus Snape was standing there with another Slytherin boy who looked vaguely familiar to Sariyah. She only had the energy to look up at Snape and his colleague, not wanting to deal with him so early in the morning.

Sirius had to exercise great self-restraint as he beat down the urge to give Snape a good kick in the shins. "Yes, I do plan on going to Potions," he responded, returning to his porridge and shifting it around.

"I noticed you were only in it two days last week, out of the three days we unfortunately have to bear with you Gryffindors," sneered the stocky boy standing beside Snape. He had curly blonde hair that covered his ears and turquoise blue eyes that seemed to twitch excitedly.

"Perhaps," stated James, gripping Sirius's arm before he could rise in anger, "you should be noticing the directions Malador puts on the board, Avery. Then maybe you could brew a potion right for once and not end up with boils all over yourself like you usually do."

The group sitting at the table chuckled heartily at James's comment, and the two Slytherins slunk away, swearing under their breath.

"That's a good nickname for you guys," laughed Lily. "The Terrible Two."

"I like it. I think we should adopt it, Sirius, what do you think?" asked James.

"I think that we're going to have to play another prank on Snivellus, James. He's beginning to irritate me more and more..." grumbled Sirius.

"Getting more brave, isn't he," mumbled Peter, staring at Snape as he and Avery walked back to the Slytherin table. "Doing more without Malfoy."

"Don't worry about Severus," Sariyah said bracingly. "He's really not so bad without his cronies nearby."

"Not so bad?" asked Sirius. "He's up to his greasy nose in the Dark Arts."

"I suppose, he's never posed any problem to me is what I'm saying," Sariyah conceded, not being much of an arguer. "By the way, James, did you call the other one Avery? He looked familiar to me, but I couldn't place him."

Sirius took a sidelong glance at James, who nodded.

"That's Elliot Avery. I think he's the Hufflepuff Avery's brother or cousin or something," James replied. "He's a bit of a wimp, really. He backs off really quick, I've noticed." Sariyah nodded and busied herself with her toast, now realizing why the other boy had looked a little familiar.

"Where's Remus?" asked Lily.

"He was tired," Sirius said quickly. "He's not in Potions anyway, he hasn't got a class on Monday 'til Defense."

"Lucky," Sariyah smiled, gathering up her book bag. "Gets to have a bit of a lie-in, eh." Her friends all took the hint and grabbed their bags as well, and headed to the dungeons for Potions class. They took their usual seats, Lily beside Sariyah, James on the other side of Lily, with Sirius and Peter sitting nearby.

"Today will be a very important day for all of you hoping to pass your N.E.W.T.s," began Professor Malador, pacing around in front of the class. "We will be learning how to brew the Draught of Living Death."

Nearly every eye in the classroom was staring up at the professor now, incredibly interested in the potion that had that name. In the back of the room, Lucius Malfoy whispered something to Sebastian Nott, who was sitting nearby him; the Professor's eyes flicked to the back for mere seconds, then flicked elsewhere.

"The Draught of Living Death was a popular potion in the 1700s," she continued, her clear blue eyes scanning the classroom, landing on Sirius. "It was used when a person wished to be thought dead, but in reality was quite alive. It puts you into a suspended sort of mode, where you are neither alive, nor dead; your organs function properly, but in such a miniscule way, that they cannot be detected. It is similar to being in a deep sleep."

Sirius was now aware of Malador staring at him and averted his own stare, his dark eyes landing on Sariyah. She was about the only one in the entire class not paying attention. She instead was drawing her name all over a piece of parchment, coloring the bubble letters in with her quill. A grin flitted across his face as he watched her, her wavy hair pinned back with a red clip, her light green eyes staring at her parchment.

"Tell me then, Miss Khan," Malador said abruptly, causing Sariyah's head to jerk upwards, "what other purposes could one possibly use the Draught of Living Death for?"

"Er," Sariyah mumbled, casting around in her brain for an answer. Her mind shot out of the blue back to her second year, when a snotty, younger Severus Snape had been talking to her about this very potion and how it was commonly used among Dark wizards. "Dark wizards used it commonly. To--er--escape penalties they, um, encounter. With the law and all."

Professor Malodor nodded her head curtly. "Two points to Gryffindor."

Sariyah was somewhat puzzled, as she didn't know that such a small amount of points could have been awarded to a house. Sirius scooted his parchment towards Sariyah in the most nonchalant manner that he could manage. Sariyah smiled as she saw "At least it wasn't one point" written in his scrawling handwriting at the top corner of the page.

The rest of the class time proceeded in extensive note taking on the Draught of Living Death, and they were expected to read about it before the next class. Malador held back James and Sirius (to remind them, no doubt, of the detentions that they were serving that night for putting Snape to sleep the week before).

They both hurried down the corridor to catch up with Lily, Peter, and Sariyah.

"You know, that Malador woman's not that bad looking," grinned Sirius, winking at James. "Up close, she's alright."

"Yeah, if you go for the teaching type," laughed James, sliding an arm around Lily's shoulders.

They trundled down the hall towards Defense Against the Dark Arts, running into a very off-color Remus along the way. His face was sunken in and he looked much more tired than any of the others.

"Remus, are you okay?" asked Sariyah, alarmed at his sickly appearance.

"I--I'm fine," he murmured quietly, shooting a brief glance at the men, looking for help.

"He had some bad--uh--turkey last night," explained Peter at once, with what could have been quite possibly the worst excuse ever thought of.

"Bad bird, yeah," James said, backing Peter up, and at the same time giving him a disdainful look at the flimsy excuse he had made up.

"Foul fowl, you could say," chuckled Sirius, adding in his own piece.

"Alright, alright, I get it," sighed an exasperated Sariyah. "Do you need medicine or something, Remus? Maybe you should go to the hospital wing..."

"I'm okay, Sariyah, it's all right," he answered again as they all entered the classroom. Sariyah and Lily sat in the front, while their male counterparts found seats in the back of the room.

The class passed as usual, with Sariyah and Lily trying to stop staring too much at Professor Evander. As the group left the classroom, their fellow Gryffindors Frank Longbottom, Acantha Ellis, Bernice Northing, and Lethe Robinson, joined them.

"Oy James--Quidditch practice starts next week, dear captain, have you rounded the team up yet?" asked Bernice, who played Keeper on the Gryffindor House team.

"Actually we may have some excellent new recruits," said James, as they walked towards the Great Hall for lunch. "I was out on the pitch last Saturday morning and some of the younger Gryffindors were out there practicing. They looked pretty damn good, from what I saw."

"Excellent," stated Bernice, who proceeded to grab James's arm and pull him away from the group. "Just twenty minutes, Lily?" she pleaded.

"Take as long as you like, Bernice," Lily said, laughing as Bernice dragged James towards the Gryffindor team, who were seated together, deep in conversation at the Gryffindor table. The number of players had dwindled; James, who had played Seeker from his second year at Hogwarts, had been itching to play a position that would allow him to exercise his skill in flying. He was hoping that there would be some exceptional candidates for Seeker, and that he could be a Chaser for his last year. Bernice was definitely staying as the Keeper, but they lacked in numbers. At the current moment, they only had two of three Chasers (including James, and a black girl named Anaya Rodgers, a sixth year), the Keeper (Bernice), and one of two Beaters, a fifth year named Kaemon Yamamura.

The rest of the day passed smoothly, and the Gryffindors soon found that they had much homework waiting for them when they sat down to finish it. A menagerie of essays, spells, and potions had to be learned; otherwise they were looking at a very slim chance of careers after graduating from Hogwarts.