"Sirius, don't be an idiot," Remus said.
Many of their conversations contained a line like this. Sirius kind of liked annoying Remus. He just got so nit-picky over every little thing.
"Sirius, be an idiot," said James.
He laughed. He considered his options. "I'm siding with James, here."
"Of course you are," said Remus.
"You always decide to do the stupid thing," said Peter.
Sirius considered that. "Fair point." He did always decide to do the stupid thing, and he wasn't even sorry about it. Being rational and responsible all the time was boring. That was prefects' job. He got up, and Remus shook his head. James grinned, and Peter watched with wide eyes. "Hey, Marlene."
She turned around, her thick, wavy blond hair spinning around. God, that hair was gorgeous. "Sirius Black, get the hell out of my face," she said, and she stormed up to her dormitory, her hair bouncing behind her. He watched her go, swallowing his wounded pride as he had done every other time she had rejected him.
"Sirius," said Remus. "I mean this in the kindest way possible. She is not into you."
"She'll come around," he said.
"It's been three weeks," said Peter. "And she's known you more than four years."
"Oh come on, why are you taking his side?"
"Because he's right?"
"Don't listen to them, Sirius," said James. "You'll get her to say yes eventually. Just like I'll get Lily to say yes eventually."
"I really don't think Lily is in the mood to have you constantly bothering her," said Remus. "She's upset about something. Yesterday when we were talking, she was almost crying. She won't tell me what the problem is, but whatever it is I don't think your berating her will help."
"I can wait," said James. "She'll say yes eventually."
"And so will Marlene," said Sirius. "I'll get her to." But looking at James, he could see that getting Lily to say yes to him probably meant even more to him than Marlene did to Sirius. He did hope that James and Lily would end up together.
"Even if you did," said Remus, "Would you really want a yes that was only given because you pestered her into it?"
Sirius frowned. "A yes is a yes," he said, but Remus had a point. He wanted her to actually be into him, not to tolerate him. Most of the other girls said yes to him without hesitation. She didn't, and somehow that made her more appealing.
"Whatever," said Remus.
In Potions class, James and Sirius frowned and looked at their cauldron. It was supposed to be purple, but instead it was a murky brown color.
"What did we do wrong?" he asked. Potions had always been their worst subject; Defense Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration came almost naturally, but this was a very different kind of work.
"You stirred clockwise instead of counterclockwise," said Lily from the table beside them, where her and Marlene's pot was the proper shade of purple.
"Oh. Thanks," said Sirius.
"Yeah, whatever," Lily muttered. He thought he could see what Remus had said; she did look upset. Her head was directed down at the table, and the fiery attitude she usually had was, while not exactly gone, certainly not as prevalent. He could understand having a bad summer; this summer had been particularly bad, with Regulus coming home from his first year of Hogwarts proudly a Slytherin, and their parents chastising Sirius about being a Gryffindor all over again. He was nothing but a disgrace to them, and he and Regulus hardly spoke, either. He remembered all the times he had shared with Regulus as children, when they had played games together as young boys did. Now they didn't even make eye contact most of the time.
"Sirius?" James's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. "Everything alright?"
"Yeah, everything's fine," he said. He certainly wasn't going to bring these thoughts up in the middle of Potions class. "Come on, let's stir it the other way."
They stirred it back; it was still brown, but had a slightly more purplish hue.
"Ah, girls, excellent!" Professor Slughorn said, walking by Lily and Marlene's table. He went over to James and Sirius. "Ah... well done, boys."
Sirius sighed. Oh well. There was one O.W.L. he was going to have a hard time with.
