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xv. CHAPTER FIFTEEN

COKEWORTH.
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BRIAR SAT DOWN in the Great Hall the next morning beside Gemma Prince, who was reading the day's edition of the Daily Prophet. She smiled at Briar when she saw her, and put the paper aside.

"Morning. Woke up rather late today, didn't you?"

Briar shrugged. She'd been waking up late more often, something that worried her. She'd always been an early riser, but sleep seemed to elude her these days. She spent most of the night lying awake in bed, only to have to wake up in the morning as soon as she fell asleep. "I suppose. Anything interesting in the news?"

Gemma shrugged, passing Briar the paper casually. "One of the Chasers of the Chudley Cannons has decided to retire... oh, but you're not a Quidditch fan, are you? Never mind."

Briar looked down at the paper, scanning the front page which contained a large interview with the Chaser about his decision to retire. Rolling her eyes, Briar scanned the rest of the headlines for anything that caught her eye.

"Up to 10 Muggles murdered in Cokeworth," a small column read, and Briar frowned. The article was minute, containing only some vague information about a large family of ten Muggles that were found dead in their home. There was nothing about any investigation, or even how they'd died. Briar felt disturbed. She'd heard of Cokeworth. Something about it seemed very familiar...

"Looking at the Muggle deaths, are you?" Gemma asked, buttering her toast while leaning over to see what had caught Briar's attention. "I wouldn't worry too much about that one. No proof that it was done by wizards."

Briar resisted the urge to roll her eyes. When was there ever proof that a murder had been committed by wizards? Most of them were clever enough to not leave evidence, but Briar wasn't stupid. If a large group of Muggle were murdered, you could be almost certain that Death Eaters were behind it.

Briar reached over to grab a piece of toast herself, before she noticed who was sitting a few seats further down from them at the Slytherin table. Freya Hazelwood was laughing loudly, with Rabastan Lestrange's arm around her. The couple seemed to be having a little too much fun, and their smiles made Briar want to puke.

"Noticed them, have you?" Gemma asked Briar, shooting Freya a dirty look. "That one's a conniving little brat. She wouldn't be with him if it didn't benefit her, and anyway, she's a halfblood. There's no way Rabastan's serious about her. This wouldn't have happened if you'd just listened to me and gone for him when he was single."

"It doesn't bother me," Briar replied simply, reaching for the butter. "I can think of bigger problems in my life than Rabastan Lestrange's latest girlfriend. Though I'm sorry if you had any hopes set on him."

Gemma scoffed. "Please. Now I know what his standards are, I can do so much better. I suppose I'll get a move on, then. See you during Potions?"

Briar nodded, finishing her breakfast quickly before heading down to the Potions classroom herself. She noticed that it looked as clean as ever, and there was no trace of the previous day's chaos. She slid into an empty seat quickly and waited for Slughorn to turn up to class. She smiled when she saw Lily enter the classroom. The red-head approached her, smiling weakly.

"Hello, there. I hear we're brewing in pairs today. Do you want to work together?"

Briar nodded, moving her bag so that Lily could sit beside her. "You look disturbed. Is everything all right?" The platinum blonde asked.

"I suppose not. There was a Muggle attack in my town. Almost ten people died. One of the men was my father' colleague."

Briar's eyes widened. "Coketown! That's where you're from, isn't it? Lily, I'm so sorry."

Lily smiled sadly. "It's all right. I didn't know them well, but I'm scared. What if it's my parents next? I'm not sure what I'd do if my family got hurt."

Briar felt a surge of sympathy for the girl sitting beside her. She couldn't imagine what it must be like, sitting in Hogwarts while her family faced an unknown danger with no means of protecting themselves. "Have you heard from your parents?"

"Mum wrote me. She said that they were all fine, but she talked about a load of other nonsense. I think she's trying to make sure I don't worry. I can't help it, though."

Briar squeezed Lily's shoulder comfortingly. The red-head smiled at her genuinely. "Oh, and I almost forgot! I mentioned you to Mum in my last letter. She seems to really like you, mainly because you're a Prefect and you get excellent grades. She wanted to know if you might like to come over and stay for a few days during summer."

Briar stared at Lily. She'd never been invited to stay over at a friend's place during the summer; none of the Slytherin girls she knew were close enough to her for that. She was shocked that Lily would invite her, of all people. "That sounds wonderful," Briar told Lily with a smile. She found herself getting almost excited at the idea. She'd never met Muggles before, and she was curious to know what they were like. Lily's family seemed like wonderful people. "I'll have to ask my parents, though, and it might be a little difficult to set dates. My brother's getting married this summer."

Lily looked pleasantly surprised. "Really? I mean, I suppose I thought you'd say no. I told Mum that your parents might not be comfortable with it..."

Briar frowned. She hadn't intended on telling her parents that Lily was a Muggleborn. But she wasn't sure if that would hurt her feelings. "Well, I suppose they wouldn't. But..."

Lily smiled at her mischievously. "But you won't tell them, will you?"

"Not really, no. And it's all right, it's a few months away. I'm sure we'll figure something out by then. Tell your Mum it's really kind of her to invite me, and that I said thank you."

"I will."

Professor Slughorn walked into class, and the two girls turned their attention to the professor as he yelled out for everyone to get into pairs and find a cauldron. The students took a few moments to settle.

"All right!" Professor Slughorn called out, once everyone settled down. "Seeing as we lost yesterday's class due to unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances," Professor Slughorn paused as a few students sniggered in the back. "We'll really need to get to work this class. Now you'll be brewing in pairs, we're doing the Draught of Living Death. It's not easy, so I suggest you really pull your act together. 50 house points each to the pair who manages to brew the best potion. Has everyone found a partner?"

Everyone nodded their consent, and Slughorn glanced around the class curiously. "Farnheim and Bell, I don't want you two working together. Split up please, perhaps one of you can exchange seats with Miss Prince. Let's see... ah, Miss Evans and Miss D'Alessio," Slughorn smiled down at the two girls. "Rather a strong combination, aren't you? Perhaps we should be a bit more fair. Who can we switch you with..."

Briar rolled her eyes, as Slughorn scanned the classroom to find another pair he wanted to split up. She almost groaned out loud when she finally heard the names. "Ah! Mr. Black and Mr. Potter, you two look far too pleased with yourselves. You're very lucky that we couldn't find any evidence linking yesterday's mischief to you."

"No idea what you're talking about, Professor," Potter replied cheekily. Briar glanced back to see that they were both grinning.

"All right. Miss Evans, perhaps you could go back and join Mr. Potter. Maybe you'll be able to drill something into that overflowing brain of his. Mr. Black, up front, please."

Briar waited patiently while Lily and Sirius switched places. Bugger Slughorn, couldn't he just let her work with Lily? She scooted her chair over so that it was a respectable distance from Sirius's. Slughorn called out for everyone to get started, and Sirius grinned at her.

"Well, how may I be of assistance?" he asked, as she pulled out her textbook and flipped over to the right page. "You're the one that's good at this subject."

Briar frowned at him. "You can go get the ingredients while I heat up the cauldron. And don't touch anything unless I tell you to. I'm not going to let you mess up my grade this term."

Sirius shrugged, moving along with a bunch of other students to gather the ingredients that they needed for the potion. Briar set about grabbing all the apparatus which they required, and glancing at the instructions in the textbook. They were rather complicated, and Briar glanced up as Sirius returned with an armful of ingredients. "All right, here you go. What can I do next?"

"Cut up the sopophorous bean," Briar replied, handing him a knife. "We need all the juice. Be careful, don't let any of it go to waste."

Briar turned away to start powdering the asphodel root, but she realized that Sirius was clearly having trouble with the knife. His hands were too big and clumsy, and the bean seemed to slip away from him every time. She sighed. "Do you need help with that?"

"What?" Sirius asked, casually. "No, I'm all right." He brought the knife down again and this time the bean slipped out of his grasp entirely, almost falling to the floor. He caught it quickly.

"That's not how you do it," Briar muttered, grabbing the knife from him. Her hands brushed against his, but she pretended not to notice. "Just chop it, all right? And grip the bean with your other hand."

Sirius nodded and took it from her, attempting to chop the bean again. It failed and she groaned.

"Really, Black? You can't even cut a stupid bean?"

Sirius shrugged apologetically, setting the bean in place. "Show me again?"

Briar grabbed his wrist, which was holding the knife and guided his hand in the right movement. His skin was warm, and she was uncomfortably reminded of their encounter the previous night. Blushing slightly, she yanked her hand back, only to watch Sirius continue chopping the root with perfect precision.

She gaped at him, open-mouthed. "How on earth did you..."

He smiled cheekily, and Briar blushed even more, realising that he'd fooled her. Pursing her lips together, she quickly turned back to her asphodel, and started powdering it hard.

"Relax Rosie, don't take it out on the root," Sirius joked casually, as she added the root to the cauldron. She gave him a dark look.

"Why? Would you rather I took it out on you?"

"Not particularly."

Sirius shrugged, before glancing towards the textbook. "Is there a measure of how much wormwood we need for the potion?"

"It's not mentioned here..." Briar said, flipping a page in the book. "But I remember Slughorn giving us an approximate measurement in class. I don't suppose you ever took notes?"

Sirius snorted.

"I thought so," Briar muttered. "The notes should be in my bag. Can you grab them? I still have asphodel powder all over my hands."

Sirius picked up Briar's bag, and pulled out a few pieces of parchment. The first few looked to be Potions notes, written in small, pointed handwriting. He handed them over to her, before noticing another bundle of parchment. "What's this?" he asked, yanking it out. Each piece of paper contained an elaborate and detailed sketch of a different dress, most of them beautiful and expensive-looking. "Did you draw these? I didn't know you like to sketch."

Briar looked at the parchment and sighed. "No, I didn't draw those. Will you please put them back?"

"What are they for?"

"Possible bridesmaid dresses for my brother's wedding. My mother wanted me to have a look at them. Would you please just put them back and concentrate on the potion?"

Sirius ignored her as he flipped through the different sketches. He paused at one with a particularly low neckline, and grinned. "Well, if you want my opinion, I like this one."

Briar held back a smile, "I don't want your perverted opinion. Just put them back, and add 40 ounces of wormwood, will you? At this rate, we'll never finish our potion before the end of class."

Sirius reluctantly put the sketches back into Briar's bag, and added the wormwood as she told him to. They worked in silence for a few minutes, neither really looking at the other. Professor Slughorn came by, gave their potion an approving nod, and walked away.

"Is it the right color?" Briar asked, leaning over the cauldron to look inside. Her platinum blonde hair was dangling over her shoulder, and Sirius watched as it fell dangerously close to the cauldron. He reached out and pushed it back gently, grinning as Briar straightened up and gave him an odd look. "It's meant to be lilac. I think we're doing all right."

"Perhaps I should work with you more often," Sirius commented, as he watched their potion turn the exact shade that the book said it should. He turned around, and called back to James. "Hey! Our potion's looking rather good, I think we'll snag those house points!"

James laughed, as he stirred his cauldron. "Not a chance! I've got Evans with me!"

"Oh, we'll see about that!"

Briar smiled to herself as the two boys argued about whose potion was better, until Professor Slughorn told them to be quiet and mind their own business. Sirius, unperturbed, turned back to Briar. "Well come on, we've got to beat James."

"Of course we'll beat them," Briar replied, still smiling. "Those two will be too busy gazing into each other's eyes to remember their potion."

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And you're not too distracted by my gorgeous eyes?"

"Please. Your eyes are the color of decomposed mould."

Sirius stepped closer to her, forcing her to look up at him. She glanced up into those sinfully mysterious grey eyes, and tried desperately to think of something else as he spoke softly. "Because I think your eyes are amazing. Blue, with just a tiny tinge of silver. Makes me think of the sky on a cloudy day. I could just stare into that sky forever..."

Briar breath hitched, and she dropped the sloth's brain that she was holding. It landed with a plop in their cauldron, and Briar watched in horror as the potion turned a disgusting brown color, and began to bubble. "Fuck!" she cried, staring at their potion. "That wasn't suppose to go in until after I stirred it, it's ruined!"

Sirius tore his eyes away from hers, and poked the potion with the stick that they were using to stir it. It only began to bubble harder, and Sirius watched it, concerned. "It's not going to blow up, is it?"

Briar frowned. "Oh Merlin, I hope not. Professor Slughorn!"

Professor Slughorn bustled over and waved his wand at the potion, emptying the cauldron before it could do any serious damage. He glared up at Sirius, looking annoyed. "I'm extremely disappointed with you both. Have I not mentioned multiple times in class that the sloth's brain is to be added after stirring? Or have you not been listening in class?"

Briar bit her lip, looking down at the floor in shame.

"It was my fault, Professor," Sirius spoke up, looking at Professor Slughorn. "I added it even though she told me not to."

Professor Slughorn raised an eyebrow. "I have no doubt that is true, Mr. Black. Perhaps you can come down here after dinner tonight and sort out the rest of the sloth's brains in the supplies closet as detention."

Sirius shrugged. "Sounds like a blast, Professor."

Professor Slughorn walked away, and Briar gave Sirius an odd look, as he cleared away the ingredients. "You didn't have to do that. I can take responsibility for my own actions, Black."

"Yeah, well," Sirius shrugged lightly. "You said you'd never been in detention before. Everyone has a right to their own track record, I didn't want to ruin yours for you."

Briar frowned at him, but nodded. "Thank you."

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heyyy, hope everyone is doing well, i might not have the biggest platform on here but i just wanted to say something about the crisis in yemen, who is going through the worst humanitarian crisis in the world,, this case is very dear to my heart so i have a petition that you could sign and and funds that you could donate to in my BIO (since wattpad ain't letting me paste the links on this chapter) xx pls let's not fail these innocent children <33
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