A/N: Normally I don't do notes, but just in case some people were confused about the false alert(s) that happened earlier. I had a formatting issue and uploaded this chapter three times. Really sorry about that, I'll try not to do it again. On a more happier note, I would like to thank my first reviewer and dedicate this chapter to papayathewritingmachine. Thank you to everyone else who reviewed, followed, and favorited!
Walking down the stairs, Sirius scanned the common room until his eyes rested on the fiery red hair of Lily Evans, the object of James Potter's desire.
She was pretty enough, Sirius supposed. Striking red hair, flashy green eyes – she was beautiful and strong, and well known for being incredibly smart. Too smart to get caught up with James Potter, but smart enough to use his friend Sirius Black whenever the need arose.
Such a need had arisen when Lily had been shot down by a boy for the umpteenth time due to James Potter's infamous tendency to threaten all the boys of Hogwarts who even dared to think about asking Lily out. So Sirius and Lily weren't "chummy" as James put it. Sirius had merely offered his assistance to a frustrated Lily, and now Lily owed him many favors.
After all, there was only one person in Hogwarts who could distract James Potter from Lily Evans when she was off on a daring date with one of her suitors, and Lily knew it.
"What's up, Evans?" Sirius asked smoothly, interrupting a dull story about some girl's summer.
Lily looked up, her face morphing into one of distaste. "Black," she greeted curtly. "Had a good summer?"
"Of course not," Sirius said, knowing that his hatred for summer vacations was already an established fact among the Hogwarts public. "Now, why so unfriendly, Evans? Don't be like that."
Sirius sat down, making himself comfortable. "I needed to talk to you about something in private." He gave a pointed glance at the other girls, who shifted uncomfortably.
Lily shrugged, "Sorry, I'm in the middle of a conversation, Sirius." With that, she turned away and continued her conversation, obviously ignoring him.
Sirius scoffed at her weak attempt and smiled at the girls. "I'm very sorry, ladies," he said, cranking up the charm, "I'm afraid I have to borrow Lily from you for a bit." Standing up, he dragged her away to a more secluded corner of the common room.
"Black, you are impossible," Lily spat. "What do you want?"
Knowing that Lily would rather appreciate directness compared to dilly dallying, Sirius decided to keep it simple and honest. "I'm spying for James."
"I figured," Lily snapped sarcastically, "I'm a smart girl." Crossing her arms, she glared at him expectantly, "Well? What did he offer for you to do his dirty work?"
"You know my fee," Sirius said simply. "I work for favors. I'll collect his later. Speaking of, I'm guessing that your secret date with Williams, that I helped you keep from James, didn't go too well if you've already forgotten about him in lieu of whomever your new boyfriend is."
Lily sighed. "You really don't beat around the bush, do you?"
"I'd like to get things moving along, if you must know," Sirius said. "So, his name?"
"Remus," Lily said, gritting her teeth. "His name is Remus, you jackass."
Sirius grinned. "Now we're talking. No need for the hostility, Evans. Oh, and really, how was your date with Williams? I'm not just reminding you that you owe me, I do care."
Lily sighed, "It was fine. Nothing too crazy, completely a normal date. I don't need to marry the boy if he's not heinous, you know."
"So why no second date?" Sirius asked, curious despite himself.
"He was a little boring," Lily shrugged, "nothing scandalous. Thank you for making sure Potter didn't find out, by the way. Even though you couldn't just do it out of the goodness of your heart," she jabbed. "Beats me how you did it, Potter is a menace."
"Don't I know it. And you can repay me for that right now," Sirius said slyly, "I'm cashing in my favor. Let's just have a friendly chat about what happened over the summer, okay?"
"I never understood this part," Lily said. "What's in it for you? You're just cashing in your favor just for another favor. Why?"
"Well, that's true, but I promise results," Sirius said honestly, "remember that the next time you need something. I have uncollected favors lying around everywhere. And not all of them are used for information. It's good for business." He grinned, "Also, I'm incredibly nosy."
"True," Lily agreed in concession, "in fact, you're too nosy for your own good. If you'd just waited a few minutes, I was going to tell you things so you could help me out a little. Of course, now I'm just worried that you'll listen and parrot everything I say back to Potter.
Sirius shrugged. "I'll keep my mouth shut if you let me up your skirt, Evans," he said unabashedly.
"Shut up, you toerag," Lily said without missing a beat. "I'd rather you run back to Potter to blab like the good little sidekick that you are."
"Pity, but it was worth a shot," Sirius said ruefully. "You are awfully attractive, Evans. No wonder he's obsessed with you."
Lily tossed her hair over her shoulder, cheeks flushing a little. "Thank you, I guess," she said, "but aren't you not supposed to hit on who your best friend fancies?"
"It's commonly frowned upon to do that, yes," Sirius admitted. "But let's face it, he's not getting anywhere, and I probably had no chance either."
"Stop flattering me and let's do this," she said determinedly. "I don't have all day." She brought out a small picture of a smiling boy. "This is Remus," she said, her voice a little softer than before.
Sirius studied the picture, marking notable features to repeat back to James. Remus was a lanky boy around their age with longish, dusty, light brown hair. He had green eyes, not nearly as brilliant as Lily's, but not dim either. Sirius decided that he was attractive in a boy-next-door way, save for a slight scar that spanned across his face.
"Alright," Sirius nodded, "I'm better looking than he is. That's always good to know."
Lily smacked him. "Shut up," she said, "just because girls throw themselves at you doesn't mean that he's not attractive."
Sirius smiled conceitedly. "I knew you wouldn't disagree," he said smugly, "I am a handsome son of a bitch. But yeah, he's a good looking bloke. Smart looking, I bet he's the scholarly type?"
When Lily offered no comment, choosing to just smile at the photo some more, Sirius grew impatient. "Come on, Evans, he's your new boyfriend and I have a job to do. Gush! Talk a little! I need information."
Lily laughed. "Fine. He's… well, he's amazing, Sirius. We met at a muggle market back near my place and he knew that I was a witch right away – saw my wand in my pocket – and we just started talking and we didn't stop once the whole summer."
Lily looked around to see if anyone was listening before lowering her voice. "And you know how much I was dreading this summer because of what happened last year with Severus. I thought it would be terrible, and really, he wouldn't stop trying to talk to me, it was so annoying, but Remus was great about it. Told Sev to shove off."
"Hmm," Sirius hummed, "I think I may like this Remus bloke if he told Snivellus to stuff it." Casting around for something that would shock Lily while simultaneously satisfy James's curiosity, he offhandedly blurted, "Did you have sex?"
"Black!" Lily said, looking around to see if anyone else had heard. "What the fuck is the matter with you? You don't just ask that kind of thing – what on earth, I can't believe you just said that!"
"So that's a yes," Sirius said, knowing that if it wasn't Lily would correct him and if it was, Lily would either change the subject or stay red faced and silent. He looked up to check and sure enough – red faced and silent. "Good to know."
Lily smacked his shoulder again, this time hard enough to actually hurt. "You're such a jackass, you'd better not tell Potter or he'll fling himself from the walls in the Great Hall and moan about it to eternity, and I do not need that kind of drama this week."
Sirius privately agreed with her about his friend's penchant for dramatics. "Was he any good?" he asked, before smirking. "Of course he was, you're his girlfriend now, aren't you? He must have been great. How old is he? Where does he go to school? Why isn't he here at Hogwarts?"
Lily, grateful that the conversation had moved onto safer topics jumped to answer, as he had known she would. "Actually, that's the thing that I needed your help with," Lily said, a worrisome crease appearing between her eyes. "I don't know a thing about him and I wanted to ask you what I should do about that."
Sirius stared.
"I'm sorry," he heard himself say. "Just give me a second."
"You don't know a thing about him," Sirius started. "You, Lily Evans, who has spent an entire summer, around two months, sleeping with some random bloke, and you don't know a thing about him."
"Yes, yes, laugh," Lily said sourly. "I'm crazy, but it's true. I know his name, I know what he looks like, I know his address because he wrote it down for me as I was leaving so I could owl him… and that's about it."
"How can you not know anything about him?" Sirius asked incredulously. "He's your boyfriend! Didn't you talk?" At Lily's uncomfortable silence, Sirius smirked. "Better things to do than just talk?" he jibed.
"No!" Lily said defensively. "Get your head out of the gutter, Black. We talked. It's just, I hadn't really realized that I didn't know anything about him when I agreed to be his girlfriend. He's incredibly sweet, and fun to be with, and we had a nice summer thing… but on the way here, a lot of my friends asked me some basic questions and… well, I guess I couldn't… er… "
"And you couldn't answer anything," Sirius finished.
"No I couldn't," Lily said uncomfortably. "I guess all of our conversations were kind of trivial, or just all about me, or… yeah."
Sirius felt like he was going into shock. It was unsurprising that he felt like the floor had been pulled out from underneath his feet, really. Lily Evans was perfect. She was smart, so smart that she was always vying for the top spot in her year. She was responsible, responsible enough to be the Gryffindor prefect. (The other being Peter, and no one was entirely sure why or how that had happened.) She was funny, vivacious, and logical, and definitely not the type to jump into a stranger's bed and have a wild summer fling.
Which was why Sirius just couldn't help himself from asking, "Are you telling me that you, you who have constantly ragged on James for being too self centered, have a good-looking boyfriend who you know nothing about because you were too busy either having sex or talking about yourself?"
Lily glared at him as Sirius fell into pieces. "It's not funny!" she said furiously. "You are being no help here, you smug bastard!"
"I'm sorry," Sirius said, calming down. "It's just, this is so unlike you."
"You think I don't know that?" Lily asked, "that's why I need your help! Normally, I'd be direct about this sort of thing, just point blank ask why I don't know a thing about him. But the thing is, this sort of thing seems to be something I should talk about in person, and not in a letter or anything… I don't know what to do." She seemed almost surprised at the fact.
Sirius chortled. "I'm actually enjoying this chance to judge you, if you must know. Let's see exactly how much you know about your own boyfriend."
"Ignoring Lily's death glare, Sirius started firing off some questions.
"How old is he?"
"Oh my goodness, I have no fucking clue. What on earth is wrong with me?"
"Stop freaking out and think. When is his birthday?"
"Oh come on, Sirius, I don't even know your birthday. Who memorizes that kind of shit these days?"
"Unbelieveable," Sirius muttered. "You and James are made for each other. What's his favorite color? What's his favorite food? Does he listen to music?"
"Stop it! Stop it! You've made your point, I don't know anything about him, alright?"
"Do you even know if he's a wizard?" Sirius asked incredulously.
Lily flushed.
"I think it's red," she muttered faintly. "His favorite color, I mean."