"I just don't get this part." Sirius said to Millicent, he was reading through his ancient runes textbook, but he still was struggling to figure out the what the rune they were studying was, and what it meant.

"The first one means fire, I think." Millicent looked over, "I'm not sure about the second one."

"What convinced us to take this class?" Sirius sighed, his head was hurting from how he was concentrating so hard.

"I don't know, it sounded interesting, but it's so difficult." Millicent nodded, comparing the runes in front of her to the ones in the textbook.

"So the first one means fire and the second one..." Sirius paused. "I've got nothing."

Millicent laughed loudly. "Me neither."

"Alright class, that's it for today." Their professor told them. Sirius closed his textbook with a snap.

"We dodged a bullet there." He said in relief as he shoved his books back into his bag.

"Thank Merlin, I'm starving." Millicent pulled her bag onto her shoulder and the two of them left the classroom, joining the flow of people heading to the great hall for lunch. "I am in the mood for soup.

"Soup does sound good." Sirius nodded, the weather was getting steadily colder and it had been threatening to snow for days now, but had yet to act upon those threats, much to the disappointment of the students.

"So are you excited for the yule ball?" She asked. Sirius nodded with a smile, he tended to smile everytime he thought about Cedric.

"I am. Are you?"

"Yeah, I was shocked when Ernie asked me, but I'm glad he did." She nodded. "It'll be fun."

"Yeah. I'll see you later." Sirius grinned at her as they reached the great hall and split off to go to their house tables.

"See you later Sirius." She smiled back.

Sirius sat down in the space left for him in between Hannah and Cedric. "Hey guys."

"Where've you been? Divination finished five minutes ago." Hannah asked, she always delighted in the fact that Professor Trelawney had no sense of time and finished her lessons whenever she wanted to.

"Ancient runes just finished." Sirius shrugged. "Me and Millie were talking about soup, I hope there is some."

"You're in luck." Cedric grinned as the selection of food appeared in front of them. Including a big bowl of soup and a ladle.

"Yay!" Sirius grinned as Cedric passed him a bowl of soup. "Thanks Ced." Cedric just laughed at him.

"You're in a very positive mood today." Hannah commented.

"Well, we don't have potions or herbology today." Sirius commented.

"Or charms." Justin added.

"Sirius is right, it is a good day today." Ernie grinned. "Although we have defence against the dark arts next."

Sirius' face fell.

"What's wrong?" Cedric asked.

"I get bad vibes from that man." Sirius replied.

"He's mad yeah, but I don't think he's bad. He was an auror." Justin pointed out.

"I think he's dangerous." Sirius replied, I don't like him."

They all looked at him, considering what he had said. None of them said anything for a moment. "What else have you collected?" Hannah asked, her understanding of Sirius was incredible.

"I don't understand it." Sirius replied. "Moody is here, but he's not."

"Like you look at him and he's not himself?" Cedric offered up. Sirius nodded.

"Something like that."

"Well, he is mad." Ernie shrugged. Sirius laughed.

"Maybe that's it." He nodded. "Like I said, bad vibes."

^^^
"How was defence against the dark arts?" Cedric asked as the four returned to the common room. Leah and Edward had not returned from Arithmancy yet.

"Sirius was right. There is something weird about that man." Hannah admitted.

"What happened?"

"He had us try to fight the imperious curse." Ernie explained.

"I got detention." Sirius added.

"What did you do?" Cedric asked, Sirius rarely ever got detention.

"He tried to cast the curse on Sirius and he-" Justin had to stop as he began laughing.

"I just disarmed him, it's not like I killed him." Sirius shrugged. "They're called unforgivable curses for a reason."

"You attacked a teacher, technically." Cedric pointed out.

"Yeah, but in my defence he scares me." Sirius defended himself. "He could have made me kill someone, or something."

"I mean I should tell you it was wrong, but you were scared." Cedric shrugged, sirius smiled at him.

"Thanks."

"Just don't go around fighting anymore teachers, any of you." Cedric warned them.

"That's a Sirius thing." Justin explained. "The rest of us aren't that stupid."

"I take offence at that." Sirius muttered weekly as he sat down, pulling the standard book of spells grade four out of his bag.

"Professor Sprout will be here to have a word with you." Ernie foretold, "she's not going to be happy."

"I still can't believe you actually disarmed him." Cedric leant his arm against the back of the seat where Sirius was sat beside him and looked at the page Sirius was reading about the unforgivable curses.

"I feel like we should be more concerned that he's using the unforgivable curses on students." Sirius commented.

"Sirius we just heard from Anthony Goldstein!" Leah and Edward barrelled into the common room. "That's hilarious."

"I mean I don't regret it, but I'm not looking forward to all the teachers I'm going to have to talk to now." Sirius replied, turning the page to look at the page on vera verto.

"Who will be here first, Sprout or McGonagall?" Justin asked as though he was placing bets.

"Watch it be Snape, I will get myself laughing." Hannah replied.

"Oh stop." Sirius sighed, he hadn't wanted to draw Moody's attention to him, he still did not trust him, but now Moody would be watching him and that worried him, that worried him a lot.