chapter 6 - bad liars
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Part of Poli thought everything would go back to normal when she got back from the holidays. Alas, she was certainly mistaken.
Poli enjoyed herself immensely with her family over the break. She squealed and cheered for her sister when Dani told her that she had gotten an acceptance letter from University of Leeds for their school of medicine. She got a few new books to add to her collection as well as a knit, cream-colored sweater from her aunt, and a new mug from her dad that said, "#1 grandma" on the side in small letters and said, "you've just been poisoned" on the bottom of the inside of the mug. Poli laughed hysterically when she found out that her dad had to hand paint the "#1 grandma" on himself. Needless to say, she had one of the best christmases she's had in a long time.
When she got back to Hogwarts, she was greeted with the rumor of her and Sirius Black dating. At first she simply rolled her eyes and tried her best to dispel the rumors, feeling only mildly annoyed. Then she stumbled into Sirius himself boasting about it to a group of Gryffindors and Ravenclaws. That's when she got beyond angry. She marched up to the boy and grabbed him by his ear, dragging him off. She proceeded to slap him numerous amounts of times and yell at him, finally ending her rein of terror by saying simply, "fix this."
Poli found herself sitting next to James and Peter during lunch. She found herself mostly talking to James about Quidditch and occasionally asking Peter about any subject they found themselves on, hopeful not to leave him out. She looked around at one point, wrinkling her nose in confusion and furrowing her eyebrows.
"Where's Remus?" Though it was quick, Poli caught the flash of nervousness from James as he glances at Peter until Peter looked away, suddenly very interested in his soup. She was left to look at James with a raised eyebrow.
"He's not feeling too good. In the hospital wing. Must have caught the flu when he went back home." James said smoothly, before continuing with eating his food. But he was lying.
"Right. Maybe I should go visit him. Bring him some treats or a book or something." She saw out of her peripheral vision as their eyes widened. "You know, to make him feel better." She began to stand, gathering a bread roll and a cup of tea in her grasp, but was pulled back down into her seat by James. The clattering of her tea cup pulled the attention of a few housemates.
"Maybe not the best idea. He's highly contagious." James' voice held a subtle panicky tone that wasn't there before and Peter nodded vigorously.
"I have a good immune system." Poli challenged.
"Not good enough."
"I'll try my luck." Poli said after a pause with narrowed eyes. She stood one more time to leave but was once again pulled back down, this time with her being pulled closer to James.
"Okay, okay." James said lowly and with a seemingly out of breath voice. "We'll explain later. Just not here, not now." He glances around before holding eye contact until she agreed. It was silent for a little bit until Sirius jumped into his place at the table, noticing the tension.
"What did I miss?"
—
It was nearly 1 A.M. when she caught the boys trying to sneak out. Truth be told, she wasn't actually waiting for them, but not being able to sleep was apparently a blessing and a curse. She sat by the fire, hoping the warmth it radiated might lull her to sleep, but she could feel bags under eyes forming as she couldn't get her eyes to so much as droop closed.
She heard the quiet pattern of shoes against the stairs and out of the darkness she saw three boys huddled together, tiptoeing down the stairs, and whispering to each other. The first person to notice her was Peter.
"Uh... guys?" Peter said in a normal volume of voice, his eyes solely locked onto Poli. The boys immediately shushed him but he rolled his eyes and pointed to the girl with her ever-growing smirk on her face.
"What are you boys doing?" Her voice was mocking and playful. Though the common room was dark, the only light being the orange glow of the fire and the silver hue of the moon, they could see the glint of mischief in the girl's nutmeg brown eyes.
"Uh... well-uh..." the boys stuttered all looking for an excuse. "Just, just going to- we're going to prank- to play a prank on..." Sirius tried his best to keep his voice steady and calm, but she could clearly hear his stutters. She rolled her eyes, the smirk still a prominent feature on her face, and stood, slowly making her way over to where the boys stood, stopping when she was a few feet away from them with crossed arms.
"Slytherins!" James blurted. If Poli wasn't so intuitive and smart, or if the boys weren't complete shit at hiding something, she would've believed them.
Would have.
"Ooh. Sounds fun. How about I join you?" Poli suggested cheekily, trying to keep her tone sincere and oblivious to the fact that thy were clearly lying.
"No!" Peter shouted while Sirius and James muttered out disagreements and shook their heads vigorously.
"Wouldn't want to get you in trouble." Was a bullshit excuse she heard from Sirius to which her smirk and her amused eyes dropped into a bored and disbelieving look. He purses his lips in response, hoping to keep up the façade as long as possible but unable to find anything else to say.
"Tell me what's going on." Poli wasn't a huge fan of how demanding she sounded but she wanted answers. A flurry of "pfft"s and "nothing is going on" came from James and Peter but Sirius has his eyes slightly narrowed at her. Eventually the boys trailed off as they realized they couldn't convince her otherwise.
"Why?" Sirius challenged with a courageous step foreword. James and Peter glanced between the two, uncomfortable with the tension.
"Color me curious."
"Every heard that curiosity killed the cat?"
"Ever heard that satisfaction brought it back?" It was incredibly silent for a moment before Poli spoke back up again, a bit of smugness in her tone. "Besides, you owe me."
"For what?" Sirius asked incredulously. Poli didn't even have to answer because a quiet "Ohh." drew out of his mouth as he realized she was referring to the whole "dating" fiasco he had brought into the matrix of gossip. Sure he had squashed most of the rumor, but he fed them in the first place and people would continue to believe what they wanted. Sirius was silent for a few moments getting slightly closer to her. Her demeanor was unfazed by his weak attempt at intimidation. He sighed, giving a few more seconds for his defeated stature to fade until he rolled his eyes.
"Fine."
—
It took almost 30 minutes in total to describe everything to her since they were all keen on interrupting each other, and adding in whatever unnecessary information they thought would pertain to the story, but Sirius was the main story teller and Poli was an excellent listener. The only reaction she gave to the information was a raised eyebrow here and there throughout the story. By the time thy were finished, she sat with slightly furrowed brows and her gaze focused on nothing in particular.
"Hmm." She gave shortly after a few seconds in suspensive silence.
"That's it?" Sirius asked.
"We just told you our best friend is a..." James lowered his voice for a second, "werewolf," it got to his normal volume again. "and that we're unregistered..." it got quieter once again, "animaguses-"
"Actually, it's animagi." Peter corrected in a small voice but James simply waved him off.
"-and you just hum?" Poli sighed, a very light grin coming to her face for a second at their antics.
"Well my first thought was, "why didn't Remus just say so?" but I do actually realize how unsupportive the world is at the current moment, unfortunately. And I understand that you're all supportive friends and you are unregistered animagi, which is illegal, which is why you never told about that but you did it anyways so that Remus could be safe so, there's not really much else to say." The boys stared at her with similar bewildered expressions for a few moments and when it got to uncomfortable for Poli, she clapped her hands together, shifting the topic to something slightly different. "So, aren't you guys supposed to be going?"
They looked incredibly confused for a second before making simultaneous 'o' shapes with their mouths and nodded furiously. James and Peter leapt off the couch and ran toward the door, with Sirius behind them, when he stopped suddenly, looking back at her lightly grinning face. She raised a curious eyebrow at him as he approached her.
"Are you going to confront him?"
Poli thought for a moment. "I don't know. Maybe I'll just make extra note copies always so he doesn't have to keep asking. But if he wanted me to know, he probably would've told me so, to save him to embarrassment, I'll silently support."
"What about us? James, Peter and I." Poli smirked at his slightly nervous demeanor.
"What? About a dog, a stag, and a rat? Well," she stood, collecting her blanket, coming beside his shoulder as she talked. "as much your overall existence mildly annoys me, I don't think Azkaban is a good look on you or any of the other boys for that matter. Especially Peter, bless his heart." Sirius playfully rolled his eyes to which she smiled at. "Night, Black." She walked past him to the stairs to her dorms, not bothering to hear his response, but she did anyways ever-so-faintly.
"Goodnight, Dulworth."