JET BLACK HEART, SIRIUS BLACK

ix

part nine
animagus

Ringo sunk into Vara's warm embrace with a sigh before wrapping her arms around her friends waist. Sirius rolled his eyes and stomped his foot down loudly to catch everyone's attention, causing Ringo to jump slightly.

The remaining marauders looked towards the boy, who wrote on his notepad that he just wanted to get this over with. Ringo nodded as James handed out a small crystal phial to each person, the group of five all took out their mandrake leaves and placed them into their phials, Ringo gagging as she did, before they collectively placed a singular hair in the phial with the mandrake leaf. James took back the phials before leaving them in a cupboard to wait for a thunderstorm.

Ringo coughed before looking towards Vara and Sirius, who were fighting over a bottle of water in hopes of getting rid of the horrid taste in their mouth. (Vara won.)

She smiled at the group before turning to leave.

"Wait, Ringo." Vara's voice came out croaky, a side affect of not using it for a month, she paused as Ringo turned to face her, trying to think of a decent excuse for her to stay. "Um, maybe we should practice our patronus?" She asked.

"I don't know, Cody would be expecting me back..."

Sirius groaned loudly. "Cody this, Cody that. That's all it is now Ringo, since you started going out with him you just do everything he fucking asks! Fine, if Cody wants you to go back, then just leave! No one gives a shit anymore. All you are is a fucking lap dog!"

Ringo nodded stiffly, turning on her foot and leaving the room, wiping away the few tears that brimmed her eyes.

Once she made it to the common rooms, she saw Cody sat on the couch in front of the fireplace, no doubt waiting up for her to see who she would come back with.

"Where's Vara?" He drawled, his head falling onto the back of the burgundy couch.

"She, um, she went to go meet up with Sirius, so I left." With horrendous timing, Vara stepped through the portrait.

"GoGo! Sirius didn't mean it! Just please come back to hang out with all of us!" Vara blurted before looking at Ringo's wide eyes and fully addressing the situation.

"All of you?" Cody asked, it sounded like it should be question but Ringo knew it wasn't. And with comical timing, the rest of the marauders (excluding Remus, who was in the hospital wing, and Sirius, who was sulking) entered the common room, with more apologies to Ringo, causing the girl to wince.

Cody grabbed the girl by her wrist pulling her up the stairs and throwing her into his dormitory like a rag doll before locking the door behind him. He stalked towards her and placed a hand around her neck to lift her up before pressing her against the wall. "I should've known that you were lying about meeting up with just Vara. You're too much of a little whore." He spat, enunciating his words with a slap to her face.

He liked being in control.

"Come on, Rin," Sirius' nickname for her sounded like venom from her boyfriends lips, "you know I don't like getting angry." He drawled, causing Ringo to splutter out a string of apologies. Cody nodded, pulling her into the bed before pulling her into a cuddle, as if he hadn't just hit her.

"If I don't love you, Ringo, who will?"

A week later, there was a thunderstorm. Ringo made her way down to the room of requirement to meet up with her friends, who were already there waiting for her, with an angry bruise on her left cheek paired with a bruise on her neck.

Vara had asked in defence against the dark arts the day after it had happened, causing Ringo to give the excuse that she had fallen down the stairs in the common room, which Vara didn't believe at all but thought it was better not to pry.

James handed out the phials that he had stored away from sunlight a week earlier, Ringo looked inside to see a mouthful of blood red potion inside it. The group collectively placed their wand tip above their heart and recited the words; 'Amato Animo Animato Animagus'. Ringo winced slightly at the fiery pain in her chest.

Sirius was the first to change into his animagus, a big, black Scottish Deerhound. He barked excitedly as he looked down at his paws. Vara sighed loudly before muttering something about loosing a bet before she changed into a small, white, fluffy rag doll cat.

Ringo looked over to see that James had transformed into a majestic stag, which had obviously added to his already inflated ego. Peter, much to his dismay, had transformed into a little rat, which earned a few snickers from James and Sirius.

Ringo squeezed her eyes shut as she felt her bones re-arranging themselves and when she opened her eyes she was a lot shorter to the ground. She happily moved towards the mirror, where the rest of her friends were, admiring their animal forms.

As Ringo stood in front of the mirror, she saw a golden retriever staring back at her, she was happy being a dog, the animals were carefree and energetic. That was until she remembered what Vara had recited when the two were reading about animagus together;

"You can have the same patronus as someone because you love them, and they are connected to your happiness in a way that other people are not, since Patronuses are made from happy memories."

It seemed Vara remembered this statement too as she looked towards Ringo, no longer in her cat form, wiggling her eyebrows at her best friend suggestively as she looked between her two best friends, one who was blissfully unaware of the knowledge Vara and Ringo had picked up on and was running around the room happily.