The quiet mutterings of polite conversation filled the elegantly decorated room, the silver on the walls boasting of wealth. Sirius stood beside his mother, greeting the guests with a polite smile as they arrived. Remus and James, in the meantime, were busy setting up their prank. It wasn't going to be comfortable for any of them, but Sirius thought he could handle it, knowing what was coming – especially if it humiliated his family as they had humiliated him and his friends.
Remus and James reappeared at Sirius' side, a gleeful look on James' face and a quiet, mischievous look on Remus'. Sirius himself smiled a little at their mischief and glee, only resenting a little that he wasn't able to be more involved in the prank.
"Peter!" Remus suddenly called, noticing their pudgy friend, and waved him over.
Sirius' mother ignored them, which suited Sirius just fine. James slung an arm around the other two boys' shoulders and guided them away from the entrance, Remus sending Sirius an apologetic look as he was dragged away.
"May I be excused?" he asked his mother as the Lestrange family entered the building.
"Whatever."
Sirius hesitated for a moment, but left without saying another word, chasing after his friends and barrelling into all of them with all the force of an 11 year old boy.
"Sirius, get off!" James exclaimed, but Sirius didn't move until Remus, who had been pinned under Sirius' elbow, somehow managed to contort himself so that he could lightly nip Sirius' arm, sending the other boy straight off the three of them.
"He bit me!" Sirius exclaimed dramatically, much to Remus' amusement.
"There there, drama queen," James muttered, which was the wrong thing to say, evident very suddenly by the way Sirius drew himself up with a maniacal glint in his eye.
"I am the drama queen!" he announced in the most theatrical voice he could manage, "Bow down to me, peasants!"
James made a rude gesture in Sirius' direction, but Remus just muttered under his breath, "all hail the supreme idiocy."
Sirius returned the gesture James had made, choosing to also include Remus in it.
"I am shocked! Nay, thunderstruck! Such insolence under my rule!"
Peter, who had managed to disappear in that sneaky way of his, tackled Sirius from behind, sending him sprawling onto the floor.
"BETRAYAL IN THE QUEENDOM!" Sirius shrieked before turning to look at James and Remus, who were both pulling faces at him when his back was turned, "COME, BRAVE KNIGHTS, SERVE YOUR QUEEN! GET THE EVIL PETER THING OFF ME!"
"Nah," James replied without hesitation, while Remus walked over and sat down on top of Sirius' shoulder blades.
A quiet cough interrupted the tussle that ensued, and the four boys froze in equally compromising positions, looking up at the disapproving face of one Walburga 'Old Hag' Black.
"Your cousin has arrived. Straighten your robes and join us in the study," she said flatly as the four boys got to their feet, Peter and Sirius jumping to attention while Remus stood up a little more calmly, and James rose at a speed which was almost too laid-back.
With a haughty sniff, Sirius' mother turned with a flourish of her robes and stalked away.
"I brought the cloak, you know, it's in my trunk. We could all sneak in there together with you," James suggested, and Remus and Peter both nodded, agreeing to sneak in without being asked.
"Thanks, Jamie."
"DON'T CALL ME THAT YOU DICKHEAD!" James exclaimed, glancing around at the 'civilised' people around him to see if the muggle swearing had caused any reaction.
To his delight, a number of conversations paused as their members turned and glared at him, looking ever the typical, rich stereotype.
"I've been meaning to do that since people started getting here," he admitted later, as he pulled his invisibility cloak out from his trunk and threw it over Peter, Remus and himself.
They had to press against each other a little, and Remus was suddenly all too aware that all three of them were eleven year old boys with knobbly knees and bony elbows, but they were doing it for Sirius, and eventually James' elbow in his stomach was less painful and more a simple inconvenience.
Sirius, in the meantime, had finished combing his hair and adjusting his clothes, and was quietly staring at the spot where they had disappeared only moments ago.
"Are you sure?"
Peter and James nodded their heads, but only Remus had the sense to call out an affirmative, adding with a hint of amusement that Sirius couldn't see them and therefore their nodding had gone unnoticed.
"Then let's go."
Sirius turned and led the way down back through the room and walked into the study, where Narcissa Black sat with her parents, her back tall and her gaze focused somewhere in the distance, keeping up the typical Black haughtiness.
"Sirius, I trust your studies are going well?"
Sirius would have made a rude comment, especially with his friends in the room to back him up, but he felt a light tap on his shoulder by the incredibly insightful Peter to remind him that no, he didn't want to offend his crazy family when he still relied on them.
"Of course," he replied instead, his tone cold but neutral, the same tone he had learned to adopt around visitors if he didn't want them to treat him as a child – it mostly worked.
A different hand rested on his shoulder then – Remus' hand, Sirius guessed, judging by the size of his hand and the gentle way the fingers squeezed there, as if he wasn't sure he knew his strength and was doing his best not to hurt someone.
"Bellatrix tells me you keep interesting company," his aunt said, not blinking as she stared down at him with the same vulture-like look that his mother often gave him.
Sirius merely shrugged, "They're my friends."
"They are also blood-traitors."
Sirius heard a quiet rustling of the invisibility cloak as James nearly leaped forwards in defence of his friends, only held back by a surprisingly strong Remus and a particularly inventive Peter, who had somehow managed to pin James against Remus with all of his body weight while getting his limbs tangled in James'. Sirius coughed to cover it up, hoping the rest of his family wouldn't hear the rustling.
"They are my friends," Sirius said, his tone final, and he had a positively dangerous glint in his eye as he met his aunt's gaze, then Narcissa's, then his mother's, "I will not hear you insult them."
"I would urge you to reconsider your friendships. Narcissa is more than willing to introduce you to the right people," his mother began, but Sirius cut her off quickly.
"I know who the right people are. My friends. I don't want to be introduced to any of your slimy snakes, I prowl with the lions now," Sirius knew he was probably taking it too far, but as he said the words he felt their truth, and as he felt their truth he remembered his friends' courage, and it made him bold.
He stood up with an elegance that most would have been extremely proud of, and looked directly at his mother.
"May I be excused?"
His mother only sent him a tight nod in reply, and he turned and walked to the door, copying the relaxed fluidity of James' movements as he did so. He was very conscious of how angry his mother would be at the lack of stiff elegance, but he really didn't care at that very moment, swaggering to the door to the study room and opening it, purposely leaving it open to let his friends leave the room after him. They quickly ducked into a room they recognised – they had already been met with one too many nasty curses and creatures in their exploration of the Black's mansion, and ripped the cloak off, the three boys materialising with ease.
"Your face was way too close," James muttered to Peter, earning him a rude gesture.
"Shouldn't have tried to leave. How was I to know that Remus is strong enough to hold you back? He has no muscles!"
Remus, in a rare show of impoliteness, stuck his tongue out at Peter.
"We should get back, my family may be wondering if we're up to something."
"Not that they acknowledge my existence," Remus muttered, and Peter gave him a sympathetic one-armed hug before dashing after James and Sirius, who had decided the best way to re-enter a formal event was by racing and declaring a winner.
Remus almost ran straight into James as the boy stopped short, almost crashing into a girl they recognised as another of Sirius' cousins – Bellatrix.
"How dare you blood-traitors desecrated this house!" she hissed, but Remus grabbed both Sirius and James as they lunged forwards and easily dragged them away as they sent her rude gestures the entire way across the room.
"You're no fun, Remus."
"If we act too hostile they'll suspect it's us," was Remus' only reply, and although the chances of them suspecting the four boys was high in the first place, their hostility and refusal to play by the rules would make them an even greater suspect.
Sirius looked like he was going to say something, but instead he turned, holding his hand out to the group, "Someone dance with me."
James looked at him as if he was crazy, and Peter was shaking his head firmly. Remus took a fraction too long to react.
"Remus?"
The boy groaned, rubbing at his temples, "I can't dance."
"You know I saw you dance with your dad on Christmas, right?"[
"That's different to… this dancing."
Sirius didn't seem to care, grabbing Remus' hand and using it to pull him close into his arms. It was the first time they had been this close since the Incident, and Remus took a small step back to put some space between them. Sirius, however, took this as a sign that he was willing to dance with him, and didn't hesitate to step forwards with the other boy.
"See? It's not that hard," Sirius said, his grin growing wider as he caught a few disapproving looks from his relatives.
He tried to twirl Remus around in the way he had been taught, but the fair-haired boy hadn't grown up learning the subtle queues of formal dances, and he ended up falling, tripping Sirius and sending him sprawling alongside him with a bark of laughter.
"Were you trying to injure me?" Remus teased, but Sirius was still laughing, for once feeling comfortable at a gathering with his family.
It was all their fault, Sirius realised in surprise, and the thought sobered him up a little. James, Remus and Peter – and Lily too – had completely turned his life on its head. In some ways, he knew that they may completely ruin any chance he had ever had of being a member of the proud house of Black, of inheriting the mountains of galleons in his bank, of starting and continuing to be a respected member of the Wizarding society. But he had never felt comfortable knowing that he had his entire life planned out in front of him. His four Gryffindor friends had turned his life on its head – and had rescued him, brought him into a world where he could be comfortable with being himself, where he could laugh so hard he cried, where he would never be told to go away and mind his own business without any reason. And when Remus called his name, asking if he was still with there, he turned and sent the biggest smile he could manage to the fair-haired boy, pushing himself up off the floor to embrace him.
Remus let the boy cling to him for a few moments, but soon pulled away, leaning to mutter in his ear, "I bet you won't be able to convince Peter to dance with you."
"Two sickles. You're on."
"There better be some table dancing involved."
Remus, James and Sirius were all curled together under Sirius' blanket, a muggle torch Remus kept handy lit up their faces, casting shadows around their lips and noses and eyes. James had, a long time ago, exhausted all the possible variations to holding the torch under his chin and grinning evilly, and Sirius exhausted all the possible variations of rude gestures at the exact same time – the timing so excellent it would have been surprising if the gestures weren't mostly directed at James – and they had turned their thoughts onto the events of the day.
"I told you I'd get Peter to dance with me!" Sirius was crowing at Remus, who laughed at the memory.
"You're quite an impressive table dancer," Remus said, clutching his side which was beginning to ache from laughter.
"You're not too shabby yourself," James cut in, a wide grin on his face.
"Did you see the old hag's face when that Malfoy and Carrow lot took off?" Sirius asked, filled with glee, "they looked like they were positively itching to leave."
"How about those Rosier creeps? Half of them excused themselves to the toilet covering their mouths!"
"When the dungbombs went off I thought she was going to faint! Greatest day of my life! Hey Rem, stop thinking and celebrate with us!"
Remus startled out of his thoughts as Sirius clapped a hand on his back, and a small, almost shy smile crossed his face, "It was pretty good to see Bellatrix run into that wall. She deserved that."
"If Remus says it was a good prank then it must be true!" James announced proudly.
"It was a good night," Sirius said, sounding a little melancholy and laying down with his head on the pillow.
The other three boys all shuffled until they lay side by side in the four-poster bed, comforting each other with their closeness.
"We'll have more good nights like these, Siri," Remus said quietly as he prepared to go to bed, accidentally elbowing James in the stomach as he tried to see the dark-haired boy over the top of James.
The room was silent for a few moments, and Remus was about to fall asleep when a voice cut through the silence, "I don't want this night to end."
"Remus do you have any good stories?" James asked out of the blue, catching Remus off-guard.
"What kind of stories?"
"Any stories."
"Like… Fictional?"
"If you want."
"Sure, I remember a few."
"Could you tell us some?" Sirius asked, sounding like a five year old, but when he sent Remus a pleading look that turned his face soft even in the harsh torchlight, Remus relented, thinking back to the nights when his mother would tell him stories as he prepared to go to bed.
"I am Sam. Sam I am.
"That Sam-I-Am! That Sam-I-Am! I do not like that Sam-I-am!
"Do you like green eggs and ham?
"I do not like them Sam-I-am. I do not like green eggs and ham."
As Remus continued the story from his childhood, the one his mother had read to him often when he himself couldn't sleep – and probably got half of it wrong, although he guessed his version was better, Sirius and James listened quietly, Sirius softly laughing when Remus "accidentally" made one of the verses sound rude.
When Remus was finished his wildly inaccurate re-telling of Dr. Seuss, the room was silent. James had fallen asleep long ago, and Sirius lay, unmoving, his breathing deep and even.
"Thank you Remus," he whispered as Remus turned off the torch, his words almost swallowed by the darkness.
Sirius soon fell into a deep sleep, but not before hearing Remus' whispered "Good night", and feeling James snuggle into his side for warmth and comfort.