A/N: Ah, jealousy. It shows up in practically every book I've read, and every TV show/movie I've ever watched, so of course I had to include it in this story somewhere! Also, Oblivious!Sirius is in here for your reading pleasure. Once again, feel free to add requests for the next steps in the comments!
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, or the emotion (it is an emotion, right?) of jealousy.
Quote of the Day: "I'm sorry that people are so jealous of me, but I can't help it that I'm popular." *Everyone moves away from her* (I'm sorry, but Mean Girls is perfection.)
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Is it Curtain Call for Your Favorite Wrock Bands?
Wrock (Wizarding rock, for those who have been living under an actual rock for their entire life) has been slowly fading away for almost ten years now, since thousands of young teens flocked to famous Muggle band The Beatles. Part of this may come from notable magazines such as Witch Weekly and Teen Witch, the latter of which often bemoans the lack of "smokin' hot new singers" and compares older bands such as the Hobgoblins to Muggle groups like "Queen". (Continued on Page B2)
—Retrieved from The Daily Prophet, Entertainment Section
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One word—J-E-A-L-O-U-S-Y. Fire up the old green-eyed monster, girls! —Julia P., London, England
"You want to make her jealous?" Sirius cocks his head at James. "But she doesn't like you. She'd probably be relieved you won't be chasing after her anymore. And who would you use to make her jealous?"
"Um," James says, shifting uncomfortably on his bed in the Gryffindor boy's dormitory. "Uh."
"Hello?" Marlene says, waving a hand in front of James's face. "Making other people jealous isn't just a hobby, it's my job. Besides, being friends with Little Miss Prefect got boring two hours ago, when she informed me that she threw out five packs of my Player's No. 6 because the smell made her feel sick. It wasn't like I was smoking on her bed or anything."
"You're going to be James's fake girlfriend? For free?" Peter looks dubious, and for good reason. Sirius can't remember the last time Marlene did anything out of pure unselfishness (he had to give up five Galleons just to get her to attend these "meetings").
"Did you miss the part where she threw out my cigarettes?" Marlene crosses her arms over her chest. "Also, I'd like to see if Potter's a worse kisser than Sirius here. My guess is yes, since I doubt he's even gotten closer than five feet to a girl's face before."
"Jealousy doesn't work," Remus says flatly. "It backfires every single time, and no one sane would ever take the bait."
"Really, Lupin?" Marlene says, a dangerous smile on her face. "We'll see about that."
A second later, she's next to Sirius, and her lips are on his. He sputters for a second, flailing, but gives in to the kiss after he comes close to giving himself a concussion by falling head-first onto the floor. Marlene is a decent kisser, and it's a lot better than their last kiss and the time Bertha Jorkins tried to swallow him whole. Plus, her lip gloss tastes like strawberry, which he's always kind of liked. And oh, that's her tongue in his mouth, and this really shouldn't feel that good, especially since it's his frankly terrifying best (and really, only) girl friend.
Finally, she pulls away, leaving Sirius red-faced and gasping for breath. James looks stunned, Peter just looks embarrassed for everyone, and Remus—Remus is gone. As in completely absent from his spot on the wooden floor.
"See?" Marlene says. "Jealousy works." She does look slightly remorseful, though, but all Sirius can think of is Remus (the angry, bitter expression on his face), and before he knows it, he's out the door, too, ignoring James's "Hey! Step Three is still in motion!"
He looks around the common room, searching for the familiar brown head.
"Oi, Evans!" he calls, his eyes landing on her long red hair. "Seen Remus anywhere?"
"He left a few moments ago, if you must know. I would guess he's heading for the library," she says coolly. "What did you do this time, Black?"
He ignores her, even though (no, especially because) she's right, and why didn't he stop Marlene from kissing him, and why did Remus care, anyway? He couldn't hate Marlene that much, right? It wasn't as if she had done anything all that wrong by kissing him, even if he didn't understand what that had to do with jealousy. Was Remus in love with Marlene? Was Marlene in love with Remus? It would make some sense, like the fact that they always argued for no reason, which was apparently a sign of romantic compatibility.
Sirius runs all the way to the library, barely stopping when he knocks over a tiny blonde Ravenclaw and only has time to call out a "Sorry!" before he's running again. He enters the room out of breath and panting heavily, and Madame Pince looks at him exasperatedly before bringing a finger up to her lips and "Shh!"-ing in a way that makes it clear she is extremely displeased at this turn of events.
He finds Remus at one of the tables, sitting across from a redheaded boy who is sound asleep, complete with loud snores that Madame Pince apparently doesn't particularly care about silencing, his head buried in a book that seems both chock-full of information and extremely boring.
Sliding into the seat next to him, Sirius whispers an "Oi," which Remus seems determined to ignore.
"Hey," he tries again. "Are you mad?"
"No," Remus says sarcastically. "Why would I be mad? It has nothing to do with the fact that McKinnon shoved her tongue down your throat and you seemed completely happy about it."
"You really do like her, don't you," Sirius says quietly.
"Huh?" Remus looks confused for a moment, which then confuses Sirius, because he is in love with her, isn't he?
"Marlene," he elaborates. "I figured it out. You're in love with her!" He says the last part just a little too loudly, prompting Pince to give him a death glare that could rival Medusa's.
"Oh. Um, yeah. Totally."
"You and James can double date, then! As long as you keep Evans and Marlene from killing each other. Or you keep yourself from killing her!" Remus snorts at the last part.
"Definitely. I'll go on a date where McKinnon threatens to kill everyone in the word in horrible ways and James shows off his muscles to Lily."
"Why do you still call her that? I mean, you do like her, right?"
"I like her. Yeah." Remus almost looks pained saying the words, which leads to Sirius giving another one of his "Huh?" stares at him, before he explains further. "I was scared what you would do if you found out. I mean, I've been pretending to hate her all this time."
"Yeah! You're an ace actor, mate."
"Thanks."
"So, will you come back now?" Sirius asks. "I mean, I promise to keep Marlene from kissing me again, even if it is impossible to resist this." He sweeps a hand over his body exaggeratedly and flips his hair like he's in one of those Muggle shampoo ads.
Remus laughs loudly, and at another indignant "Shh!" from Pince, Sirius decides that they should leave before both of them are killed by her and her probable army of evil books.
When they get back to the dormitory, James lets out a huge and most likely fake sigh. "Finally. We can finally get on with Step Three."
Sirius gives Remus a huge wink when the boy sits down next to Marlene, which Remus returns with an expression that clearly says "What am I going to do with you.".
The meeting seems to continue exactly where it left off, with it finally being decided that Marlene will pretend to be James's girlfriend for the rest of the day, and break it off in full view of the school after Evans becomes jealous (which Sirius expects to happen in approximately 2000 light years).
Apparently, the first course of action is for the two to walk into the common room hand in hand, Marlene clutching James like her life depends on it and James giving her fake heart-eyes.
"Potter!" Evans calls, and James whispers to Sirius, "See, this won't take long at all."
"You've finally decided to stop chasing after me?" she continues.
"Yep," James replies. "I am now happily in love with my beautiful girlfriend Marlene McKinnon, who is definitely a real girlfriend and not a prop because she is a person I am in love with."
"Great," Evans says slowly. "It seems as if you've finally grown up. My congratulations to the both of you. I guess this means you won't be asking me to Hogsmeade any more, right?"
"Yes," James says. "You aren't upset about it or anything, right?"
"Upset?" she echoes. "This is the best day of my life! See, Mary? I told you he'd stop chasing after me eventually."
James looks crushed, and Sirius feels bad for him for a moment before realizing that this means that they still have at least another step to go through.
"Oh." Evans's apparent happiness doesn't seem to discourage James completely, though. Marlene and James spend the next hour cuddling in front of Evans, Marlene pulling playfully at James's hair while he gazes adoringly at her. Sirius could actually believe the entire charade was real if Marlene didn't pretend to gag herself every time Evans turned away.
Thirty more minutes after that, though, Marlene seems to get even more bored, and extracts herself from James's death grip. Five minutes later, she's flirting with a confused Caradoc Dearborn, who keeps glancing over nervously at James, who is gazing adoringly at an oblivious Lily Evans.
Sirius, from his perch next to Remus on a checkered armchair, can hear every word Marlene is saying.
"So, Car," she says, "How come I don't see you here a lot?"
"Um," the tall sandy-haired boy says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, "I've been studying for the N.E.W.T.s. I mean, I really want to be a Healer, so I have to get either 'Exceeds Expectations' or 'Outstanding' in practically all the core classes."
"Ooh, a seventh year," Marlene practically purrs. "Smart, too."
"Er, don't you have a boyfriend?"
"Oh, we just got together today, so we aren't exclusive or anything," she says flippantly. "You look like you'd be a lot better for me than him, though. I can already tell."
"Does he know that?" Caradoc tries again, trying to fend off her advances. "Maybe he really likes you."
"He's in love with that girl over there. So why can't we do that?" Sirius doesn't bother listening after that, as he can already see Caradoc giving in.
He brings James's attention to the matter quickly, though, just in case he still expects her to play along.
"She can do what she wants," he says, practically drooling over the sheer excitement of being so close to Evans.
At that comment, the redhead actually starts paying attention to James. "What do you mean you don't care what she does? Do you have an open relationship or something?"
"Huh? We're not together," James says, still dazed from her actually talking to him. Sirius practically wants to shake James, because he just ruined the whole step with that one sentence (not that he cared. He was only watching because Remus was reading some dull Muggle poetry collection and Peter was talking to a pretty fifth-year about baking or something.).
"You aren't together? What?"
"No, no, we're definitely together!" James backtracks. "We're boyfriend and girlfriend, completely and utterly in love!"
"I heard you," she replies defiantly. "You aren't together at all. This is just a front you're putting on to make me jealous or some other thing to get me to go to Hogsmeade with you. Well, I can tell you one thing, Potter, and that is that I would never be so petty as to steal another girl's boyfriend, so everything you tried to do today just failed."
With that, she talks quietly to Mary MacDonald for a moment, before the other girl nods in response and the two walk out of the common room, while James tries to work out what just happened. Sirius explains the events silently to Peter and Remus, who somehow understand his gestures and mouthed words, and join Sirius next to James.
"Tough luck again, mate," Peter sighs. "Do you think that would work with Hestia Jones, though?"
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So, how was it? Feedback, review, favorite, follow? Sorry for the slightly shorter chapter. Next week: Romeo and Juliet.
