The Long-Awaited (or not) Sequel To Meet the Parents
by She's a Star
Author's Note:
I wasn't going to write this. Honestly, I wasn't. Quite frankly, when I finished MtP I was so happy to be done with it that I never wanted to get even slightly involved with such a thing again. But then, rather unfortunately, my dear friend Bohemian Storm fell head-over-heels in love with MtP Sirius. And so the idea for the MtP sequel arose. I wasn't actually going to . . . write it. But then I did.So now here is the first chapter, in all its glory.
Or something like that.
Enjoy?
One thing's for certain - this very well may drive me insane. But at least we're in on it together, right?
. . . Right?
. . . Oh, I give up.
Also - I do apologize for the occasional seemingly slashy bit of interaction between Remus and Sirius. I have fallen in love with that ship, but am trying not to let it leak into this fic, as I know there's a good chance that people who read MtP may be opposed to slash.
And I'm done rambling now.
Honest.
Chapter One: A Siriusly Strange Start to the Sequel
"I'm seeing . . . olive."
"Olive?" Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew repeated in rather aghast unison.
"Olive," confirmed Sirius Black with a sage nod.
His best friends stared at him dubiously.
"And magenta," he threw in.
Remus cringed.
"D'you think you can do plaid on walls?" Sirius continued thoughtfully, stroking his chin.
"Let's not find out," Remus requested delicately, exchanging a glance with Peter.
It was as they'd suspected.
They had created a monster.
It had all started out perfectly innocently, of course. Their friends James and Lily were newly married, and while they were off on their honeymoon, Remus, Sirius, and Peter had decided to purchase them a flat and fix it up a bit.
As soon as said flat had been purchased, it had become clear that 'a bit' simply wouldn't cut it. Nope, the tragically hideous excuse for a living space would have to be completely redone.
Sirius had found this to be a most intriguing prospect.
. . . Or perhaps that was putting it lightly.
To quote precisely, as soon as they'd announced that they'd have to do some serious modifications on the house (which, little did they know, would instead become Sirius modifications. Ha. Ha. Haha.), the ever-eccentric Mr. Black had proclaimed the following:
"Gasp! Hot dancing Veela socks!" (-No one bothered to ask about such things anymore-) "This is it! This is what I'm meant to do! I, Sirius Black, am destined to be . . ."
"Celestina Warbeck's lover?" Remus had inquired rather tonelessly.
"No, no, no!" Sirius had cried impatiently. "That was last week's dream career! And," he added with a rather stern look at Remus, "It's not 'lover'. It's 'sex toy'. Get it right, Moony."
"My sincerest apologies," Remus had deadpanned.
"I," Sirius had announced in a heroic sort of way, and dramatic music swelled in the background (but not really), " . . . Am going to be an interior designer."
"You do this," Remus had said.
And so he did.
Which leads us to our present . . . situation.
"Are you sure Lily and James would want olive and magenta walls?" Peter ventured.
"Who wouldn't?" Sirius demanded, waving his hands in a rather mad fashion and very narrowly missing Peter's face. "Are you in-sin-u-a-ting that my mas-ter-piece isn't working for you?"
The excess hyphens, which resulted in rather jerky pauses, had started popping up randomly when Sirius got especially passionate over his . . . work.
Er.
I mean:
Mas-ter-piece.
"Why don't we just go with white?" Remus suggested timidly.
"WHITE?!" Sirius exploded. "WHITE?! White is too pure, too innocent! White cannot begin to capture the dark, dirty suffering that we have faced! WHITE DOES NOT EXPRESS THE CORRUPTION THROUGH WHICH WE LIVE EACH DAY!"
" . . . But olive and magenta do?" asked Peter weakly. Remus shook his head in amused disbelief.
"Olive and magenta?!" Sirius repeated in horror. "Who said anything about olive and magenta?! BLAAAACK! PAINT IT BLACK! PAINT IT ALL BLACK!"
"Sirius?" asked Remus.
"Yes?" Sirius responded innocently, fluttering his eyelashes.
"Would you take it personally if I Stunned you?"
"Depends," Sirius responded earnestly. "You know, I--"
He paused.
"What?" Peter asked.
"I don't know," Sirius responded in an extremely philosophical and pensive way. "I just felt as though . . . I'd been hugged a million, trillion, zillion times."
Remus and Peter exchanged a look.
"Do you think," Remus asked in an undertone, "That Lily and James' love will be so blind that they won't notice they're living in the most atrocious place to ever come into existence?"
"I do hope so," Peter responded. "For their sake."
Meanwhile, Sirius had begun to dance The Bunny Hop across the living room while distractedly warbling the lyrics to 'Paint it Black' to himself.
*
"I have decided," Sirius announced the next morning when he arrived at the strangely . . . white-painted, modestly decorated home, "That this house needs a theme!"
Remus and Peter, both of whom could barely keep their eyes open and sported identical looks of extreme exhaustion, looked back in numbed horror. Lily and James were due home that evening, and Moony and Wormtail worked until five o'clock in the morning the night before on creating the perfect newlywed flat.
Which surely did not involve . . .
"Toothpaste!" Sirius proclaimed majestically.
"Sirius," Remus replied, very calmly. "No."
"But it's so boring!" Sirius wailed. "Look at what this place has become without my creative flair! It looks like my parents' house!"
"Sirius," Remus said with waning patience, "Where would you rather live? Your parents' house . . . or Toothpaste Land?"
Sirius raised an eyebrow at him. "Need you even ask?"
Remus sighed heavily and mumbled, "Just thought I'd try."
Sirius, meanwhile, skipped off, singing something that sounded suspiciously like, "Toothpaste Land, Toothpaste Land, where the ducks run free and the cheese is grand!"
Remus buried his face in his hands, and Peter let out a miserable squeak before repeatedly banging his head against the kitchen table.
*
You, the readers, are probably wondering by now exactly how things are going for Lily and James on their honeymoon in Paris. Or perhaps you're already frightened by Sirius' rather psychotic antics and just need a break from his madness. (This, I do suppose, is understandable. Except to a certain acquaintance of the narrator who is, I must admit, a bit mad.)
Well, well, well. Now, my dear readers, I must ask you to look back to the very first chapter of Meet the Parents. Do you, perchance, remember a certain bit of advice Sirius gave to Mr. Evans during that legendary chapter that started it all?
Just in case you don't (shame), I will enlighten you.
1. Have a chaperone with them at all times.
2. Do not leave them alone together.
3. DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT GO INTO A ROOM IF YOU HEAR LILY SCREAM 'JAMES, YOU TIGER!' FROM IT.
Where were we originally?
Oh, yes. The honeymoon.
"James! You tiger!"
. . . And that's all you're getting of that.
*
Sirius had been sobbing dramatically for the past eighteen and a half minutes.
"Sirius," Remus requested languidly, downing another shot of Ogdens Old Firewhisky, "For the love of God, stop it."
"YOU!" Sirius shouted in between sobs. "YOU JUST DOTE UPON MY PAIN! YOU . . . YOU'RE JEALOUS THAT I'VE FOUND WHAT I WANT TO DO FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE, AND YOU'RE TRYING TO TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME!"
"Sirius," Remus said miserably, "Lily and James don't want a toothpaste-themed house."
"You know what I think?" Sirius asked, his eyes sparkling dangerously.
"Unfortunately not," Remus replied sardonically.
"I think that you could pull off pink robes like nobody's business," Sirius informed him in a confidential tone.
Remus arched an eyebrow.
"Er . . . not . . . literally, of course."
"Right."
"I also think that you dote upon my pain," Sirius threw in for good measure. "Again."
"Sirius, I do not dote upon your pain," Remus snapped impatiently.
"Well, then, why won't you let my creative brilliance flourish?" Sirius whined.
"Fine," Remus capitulated. "Fine. You can do one room."
Sirius' eyes lit up. "Really?"
"Really," Remus confirmed.
"Any room?" Sirius continued, a rather devious grin playing at the corners of his mouth.
If Remus Lupin weren't suffering many, many hours without sleep, going insane over the stress of putting up with his hyperactive best friend, and getting rather drunk out of his mind thanks to the Firewhisky, he may have actually noticed aforementioned devious grin.
But alas, Remus Lupin was all the things listed above.
And so he uttered those fateful, fateful words.
"Any room."
(Dun dun DUN.)