Bored.

Sirius Black was bored. Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored.

Twenty-five irritable heartbeats later, he was still bored.

He had written to all of his friends already, and was a little shy of doing it again before they had written back. For one thing, it would look a little – well, funny. For another, there were only so many ways to write the absolutely nothing he had to say.

He toyed with the idea of writing to Snivelly, just for the sake of pointless nastiness, but it was too much like work. Besides, Sirius wasn’t sure he fancied the alleviation of boredom likely to come by return post. It would be at least another half-hour before he was that bored.

A bluebottle buzzed and tapped at the window, trying to escape into the pretty summer day. Sirius missed being young enough that his mother would push him out to play with Regulus. He missed his mother being sane enough to think of it. If he wasn’t careful, he might even start to miss getting along with Regulus.

All right, now he definitely had to do something.

On one of his rare outings he had scrounged a telly from someone’s garbage and charmed it into working occasionally. It might work now. He clicked a knob hopefully, and was rewarded with a grey-and-white blizzard and a hiss. Even this was better than his bedroom ceiling. Tinkering with another knob produced a burst of sound – a short passage of, apparently, bassoon – followed by static. He could spend a few pleasant moments tinkering with this old machinery…

Apparently he’d also absorbed the little melody from the burst of music. Oh, well, it was better than just listening to the fly buzzing counterpoint to the static.

He waggled the antenna about. He stood back at the far side of the room to see if he was what interfered with the picture, and was rewarded with a thicker orchestration of that darned tune he was humming…

Enough of that. He gave the set the time-honoured Muggle repair and struck it smartly on the side. The blizzard shimmied and resolved. On the small screen, a man in a black suit pulled a rabbit from a hat. Sirius cocked his head. Either the Secrecy Act was in grave danger or Muggles had devised some trick or technology for pulling rabbits from top hats. He was uncertain of the practical merits of such an activity.

The side of his personality that Peter had dubbed Padfoot The Gross suggested one merit – dinner. Sirius felt that Wormtail had little room for casting aspersions on anyone else’s bestial character.

Well. If Sirius wanted to try it the spell was – opposite of Vanishing. He actually disturbed the pile of next term’s books to look it up. Conjuring spells. He’d never attempted such a thing before, but it was Transfiguration. He was good at Transfiguration.

There was an elderly top hat in the closet, gathering dust for perhaps the last fifty years. He pulled it down and cleaned it a bit. A perfectly mummified mouse inside, lying on a label reading “Borgin and Burkes�, gave him a moment’s pause – failure could be rather hard on the rabbit, he considered. Well, in case of a mess, Padfoot The Gross to the rescue! Sirius would feel bad, but at least this was a diversion, and he was a lucky sort. Rabbits were fundamentally lucky too, weren’t they?

What was the incantation? There wasn’t one for rabbits in the books, which lowered his hopes more than a little. Oh, what did it matter? It wasn’t going to work anyway, so he could make something up and try it regardless. He drew his wand, hesitated at being underage, then realized there were currently six mature witches and wizards in the house and nobody would ever know the difference. The dratted tune popped in on the telly again at a final cadence, and Sirius playfully stole the rhythm and tune. “Lepus crepusculum!� he sang out, joyful with the pleasure of doing something completely, utterly, pointlessly silly, and rapped the hat with his wand.

Nothing happened for a moment but static, then a flicker of the magician sawing his pretty assistant in half. The hat sat dully before the set.

Then it wobbled. A twitching pink nose poked over the brim, followed by the rest of a curious bunny’s head. The rabbit started slightly as if hiccupping, then took a great leap outward and bounded across Sirius’ bed.

He had made no plans for having a real live apparently-wild rabbit in his room. He shot after the bouncing beast, eventually trapping it in a pillowcase. Then, with a vague sense of something amiss, a feeling of perhaps having seen something out of the corner of his eye, Sirius looked back toward the hat.

It had tipped over and rolled to put the opening away from him. Another rabbit, bigger than the one kicking him through the pillowcase, was squeezing out of it. A white-pawed rabbit regarded him anxiously from atop the hissing television. A small one was engaged in tipping over the water glass on the bedside table for a drink. A rabbit sampled his bedspread as its twin took an experimental nibble at the post. Two more were –

Sirius stamped his foot at them, feeling that the last thing he needed was a second wave of rabbitry in a month or so. The fat rabbit popped suddenly from the hat like a cork from a shaken Champagne bottle, apparently pushed by the cute black-and-white bunny behind him. Sirius thought he might keep that one, and then decided he would be mental to try keeping any of them, then wondered what on earth he was going to do with them all. “Finite!� he shouted, pointing his wand at the hat. Two adolescent-looking rabbits, matching white ones, popped out, then two brown ones, then… “Finite Incantatem!

Four little rabbits hopped out, and four more, these much speedier and more energetic than the adults had been. Four more, and four more, and…

Drumming little paws pattered on the hardwood; busy little teeth sampled the rug and wainscoting. Another foursome joined the throng. Sirius barely had room to stand, and he could feel little twitches on his clothes as curious bunnies nibbled his robes and shoelaces. It was time for drastic action. He pointed his wand at the rabbit on his television and tried an O.W.L. spell. “Evanesco rabbit!�

The beast looked quite startled, then went through a grotesque transformation that ended with two smaller, shocked-looking rabbits. After a moment’s recovery, the two shot off in opposite directions, starting a panicky rabbit riot.

In the scrabbling of little clawed paws, a new sound made itself known. His bedroom door creaked open, and his mother’s voice shrieked, “Sirius Black, what have you been doing?�

He shuffled carefully in place to face her, barely able to move for the furry ocean on the floor. For the first time in his life, he’d manage to dumbfound his mother. His cousin Bellatrix peered over his mother’s shoulder and convulsed with laughter as more rabbits cascaded from the hat. They no longer came in fours, he realized; they just poured out.

“Sirius – my idiot cousin – didn’t anyone warn you – about rabbits? And that hat?� she gasped. Regaining control, she turned to his mother. “We could just shut the door and let him smother in them like a Muggle. Bit hard on the bunny-wunnies, though.�

“To say nothing of messy!� his mother snapped. “That was supposed to happen to a Muggle so-called magician, not in my nice clean house!�

Bellatrix sighed. “All right. Not today, Sirius, and for the sake of your tombstone be glad of it. Peskibuni Pesternomi!�

The rabbits disappeared all at once, hopefully restored to wherever they had been. The hat rolled itself upright. Sirius stood in a gnawed room, his robes shabby around his ankles, deeply embarrassed, waiting for his mother to tell him for the millionth time that he was a disgrace. To his surprise she only shook her head gravely and turned away. That just might have been worse. Bellatrix gazed thoughtfully at the cascade of books on his desk and the flickering picture on the television screen. “Little cousin, next time you’re bored,� she advised, “you might – just might, mind you – try reading.�

He hated her for rescuing him, and on general principles. “You knew about the hat?�

“The Muggle Trap? Yes, of course. Why it’s in your room I’ll never know, unless someone wanted to be rid of you – and who would want to do that?� she added in saccharine tones. She skipped out behind his mother, shutting the door with a flourish and leaving him alone with a dusty Muggle-smothering top hat and a hissing Muggle object.

Here lies Sirius Black, age sixteen, dead of rabbiting on, he thought. She was, unfortunately, right. It didn’t make much of a headstone. Perhaps reading really was the sensible option.