Whoa, I never expected to get so many reviews in such a short period of time! Honestly, I'm flattered that you all like it. Hopefully this chapter won't be a dud or anything, but we shall see. XD Anywho, off we go!
… Don't question me about the Alohomora thing, it made sense about 25 seconds ago. And everything: and I mean everything makes sense at 4 in the morning. And might I add that, while wikipedia has Remus' birthday, it doesn't have Sirius'. Laaaame.
"S-Sirius, it..." The brunette's voice wavered uncertainly as he tugged harder, "it's locked."
The other raised an eyebrow at this, turning from where he had been investigating a rather cloudy crystal ball that had been left out on a nearby table. "Yes, I know."
Remus looked up in vague confusion, sending Sirius that 'please, be lying' look that the animagus dodged easily by stooping down to look even closer into the ball and commenting that he saw a rather irritated parrot within. Lupin, promptly ignoring his friend, practically exploded.
"What do you mean, that you know?!"
The ebony-haired Gryffindor shrugged, tossing his friend an indifferent glance from where he was stooped by the table. "I purposely shut it really hard, so the lock would shut properly. That way, Slughorn and Peeves won't find us."
Remus could feel his blood pressure rising as he stormed across the room and slammed his hands down on the table. "But then what about us?!"
"Us?" Black echoed, straightening up and looking at the amber-haired teenager quizzically. "I dunno, what about us?"
The werewolf had to use a suitable amount of self-control not to start shouting, so he began to speak in a horribly tense, controlled voice. "And how do we get out? Alohomora won't work with a latch when we're on the other side of the door. It's made for keys and things and… Merlin, you're so thoughtless!" He turned around and ran shaking fingers through his hair, taking in a deep breath in a vain attempt to calm himself down. It didn't work. "Don't you remember when Professor Alain got locked in here? He was stuck here for two whole days. Even he couldn't get out; he had to scale down the castle wall-"
Sirius cut him off in moments, having strolled to where his friend was having a mental breakdown to place a hopefully 'comforting' hand on the other's shoulder, pointedly ignoring how he tensed immediately upon contact. "Remus, he was a squib and he was drunk. We'll just stay in here for a little while until we've made sure that nobody is going to catch us and then we'll just leave. It'll be okay. But…"
The hand left Remus' shoulder and he looked up, only to see Padfoot moving steadily through the room and tugging slightly on the handles of the large cupboards that sat behind Professor Alain's desk at the front of the class.
"But what?" the brunette werewolf tried to lead him into finishing his sentence and Sirius obliged thoughtlessly.
"One does wonder if he left us any…"
The sentence, once again, died prematurely and Remus found himself getting irritated at the other's incessant trailing off. Black's coarse hands pried open the door and withdrew two full, if not slightly dusty, bottles of firewhisky, a triumphant grin across his lips.
"Look, Moony!"
Liquid the color of reddish-amber sloshed merrily in the bottles as the animagus brandished them without much thought, returning to Remus' side and pointedly ignoring the horrified look that crossed over his friend's face.
"I'm not 17 yet, Sirius," he stated, obviously trying to back out of the current situation using his infinite wisdom and knowledge of common wizard laws. It didn't work. Sirius, having hoisted himself up onto one of the squashy chintz armchairs with the bottles cradled in his arms as if they were newborns, scoffed at this.
"Well, I am. And, since I'm older than you, you're going to drink with me. Because I say so and you love me, really." Sirius, feeling rather smug, only grinned wider at his friend's irritated expression and, for a moment, internally questioned the slight red tinge that had crossed over the tips of Moony's ears. "One sec," Padfoot requested and stood, drawing a lighter out of his pocket and finding several sticks of incense before setting them into a little bronze pan that was obviously intended for the purpose. Silver and gold smoke cascaded from the little sticks, immediately omitting a pleasant, dreamy smell that reminded the werewolf of the beach. Sirius, upon sitting down again, gave him 'the' look and gave a lopsided, expectant grin.
Remus, taking a seat on the dark-purple cushion that was situated across from where Sirius was reclining, grudgingly held out one of his hands for a bottle, briefly wondering if it really did burn like James claimed that it did. The lycanthrope had generally tried to stay away from alcohol, as he decided that someone with too many secrets should, but now… he was breaking his pact. And he was breaking it for Sirius.
Those grey eyes danced with amusement as he handed the drink across, the cork already popped from the long neck of the bottle as Remus awkwardly grabbed for it and fumbled, some of the alcohol slopping down and tingeing his sleeve a light brown for a moment. Mumbling a little to himself, he placed the bottle between his legs as he pulled out his wand and scourgified the stain away. Sirius, having averted his eyes a few moments ago, was already swallowing a large mouthful of his firewhisky and the werewolf followed suit. After all, there was practically nothing about him that Sirius didn't already know… right?
In fact, there were two things that Remus could think up, right off the bat, that Sirius didn't know, and hopefully would never discover. Both of which managed to stop him seconds before the firewhisky hit his thin lips, as if they were forcibly holding the bottle back from letting any of the potent drink into his body.
The ebony-haired teenager gave him a strange look, the light buzz of alcohol working its way into his mind as he took another draught, already grinning like a child before opening his birthday presents. Finally, after a moment or two of silence, Remus convinced his inner secrets to let him have a drink, and the cold glass collided with his mouth, the sharp taste nearly causing him to cough and splutter. This was what Sirius and James treasured so?
But the animagus was looking encouragingly over at his friend, mumbling a "Good, innit?" in his direction and giving a smile that melted any resolve that had built in the werewolf's gut to a warm, sticky mass of goo (although, arguably, this might have been the firewhisky at work already). Sirius was corrupting him and he loved it. So, returning the smile with a weak, nervous one of his own, he downed another mouthful of the swirling red-amber drink, coughing into the back of his hand as he swallowed. He could feel the back of his mind go fuzzy-- like a Muggle radio between stations, almost, and a strangely warm, contented feeling swelled in the pit of his stomach.
Attributing that feeling to another one of Sirius' smiles, he sat back into his little nest of pillows and merely watched the other in that strangely calm, silent way of his as he took in several more mouthfuls.
Sirius found that drinking with Remus John Lupin was a lot like trying to take a brick wall out to dinner. All he seemed to do was take occasional sips of his firewhisky, cast strange, cryptic little glances over at him for some insane reason and grin like a complete idiot. And that, he had decided, he could handle. However, he could not handle the fact that the room was practically dead-silent, apart from the odd giggle and the slosh of drink in bottles.
"So." Black crashed through the silence awkwardly, trying to mow down the invisible, drunken fence between them. "You ever had this much alcohol before?" To Remus, Sirius' words didn't make sense for a few moments and he shook his head, smiling in that way that Sirius thought he always should, under the influence or not.
"Nope. At least… not with other people."
The dark-haired Gryffindor grinned a little. "Why, I'm flattered, Moony!" He answered back, obviously amused. So he was the first to introduce him to drinking in company? The fact that Remus trusted him that much, even after he had nearly sent Snape to his death, was incredibly comforting. The silence had reformed itself, but now into a comfortable pool between them. It could be rippled by the occasional clink of a bottle against the floor, but, Sirius thought, words could not break it so readily until he commanded them to do so.
"Talk? About anything?" He requested gently, his bottle half-full, the quiet cresting and turning into soft waves above them.
Sirius froze for a moment, trying to humor him by dragging up a topic… any topic at all.
"Girls. Let's talk about girls."
Remus sent him a murderous glare over the rim of his bottle and Sirius, choosing to ignore it, continued on as he lounged back in his armchair, fingers delicately tracing the cream-colored flowers and designs that had been embroidered there so long ago. "You know… uhm… you do like someone, don't you?"
The werewolf stopped his glaring for a moment to bite on his lip, eyes darting down to the pillows that he was so comfortably situated upon, then to the little pan where the incense lay and the smoke billowed out in strange patterns. Amber eyes were moving anywhere but where Sirius was sitting. Padfoot, once again turning a blind eye to his friend's strange mannerisms, sat forward and added a, "Well?" before Remus hesitantly nodded.
Aha. Now, he was getting somewhere. "What does she look like? What's she like? Do I know her?"
The werewolf swayed a little on the spot, placing his half-full bottle down on the carpeted floor with a resolute 'clunk' and taking a deep breath.
"Well, um… tall, beautiful… dark eyes and dark … hair… clever, kind of roguish… an amazing smile too, of course…"
Sirius had leaned forward a little, obviously interested. "As clever as me?"
He gave a half-laugh, trying to fight off the panicked tone that his thoughts were insistant on taking. "Yes… as clever as you are."
Padfoot looked semi-content with that for a moment and Remus almost collapsed back in his pillows from pure relief. "So, do I know her then? You do know that, as best friend and fellow Marauder, I have to approve of her before you two do the horizontal cha-cha."
Remus' face was red before he managed to quietly correct, "tango, Pads. And y-yeah… it's someone that you know."
Sirius shrugged a little, giving out one of those strange half-smiles and moving down to pull off his shoes before he curled up on the gigantic chair, his head resting on the arm of it as he comfortably watched Remus squirm from nerves alone. The silence pool had smoothed once more, although he could feel words skimming over the surface. Gold and silver smoke was still wafting breezily across the room and some of it caught the fading sunshine that cascaded into their space, causing it to glimmer gently.
"I don't really have a chance anyway."
Remus was the first to push through the quiet this time, and he had slumped back almost hopelessly onto the pillows.
"What makes you say that?"
Thin fingers were pressing through light-brown hair as he let another sigh loose and turned to grab his firewhisky again, pressing the glass to his lips and making a slight show of it, as if he was trying to buy some time to explain himself without giving out his stupid, completely fruitless secret. Who was he kidding? Nothing good would come of this… and here he was, laden with the only two things in the entire world that his best friend didn't know, and he was drunk enough to let them slip.
"I'm not good enough for him, it's just… I hate ruining good things and… I'm not even attractive!" He made a vague hand gesture, narrowly avoiding spilling firewhisky all over himself before he looked up at his friend, who had fallen uncharacteristically quiet.
Sirius was sitting on the edge of his seat, staring full force at him. And, for a moment, they just looked at each other before Sirius, very deliberately, repeated back into the stunned / confused silence, his face tinged a slight pink.
"Him?"
… XDDD! This is too much fun to write. Seriously. And sorry about not updating earlier, I just REALLY didn't expect THIRTEEN REVIEWS IN THE FIRST 24 HOURS! Honestly, you guys rock.
Uhm… 35 reviews in total, not separately, will be around when I get to updating. Or something. AND YES, A CLIFFHANGER. HAHHHH. (Yes, it's been changed because I haven't had this goddamn chapter up for over 12 hours and I -already- have 21 reviews? You people are -fantastic-! XD)
This chapter's line, "Talk? About anything?" line is dedicated to Jen. XD We do that too much, don't we? -loves upon-
Anyway, hope you liked this chapter, everyone! XD
