A/N: I'm a little worried that starting with this chapter I'm going to verge on queerbaiting if I'm not super clear about what to expect, so I'll clarify some things—James and Peter are straight, Sirius is heterosexual/panromantic (although he doesn't realize it until seventh year and never forms the vocabulary to express this very articulately), and Remus is super gay for Sirius but in denial about it until midway through sixth year. Remus and Sirius's romantic relationship starts to actually happen in Chapter 35 of the sequel. Also, at this point in Legacy, they're all eleven years old and barely experiencing crushes for the first time—actual romantic relationships won't show up until later.

Edit 17 January 2022: I hadn't intended to make the Remus/Sirius quite so prominent in this fic, but, well, then the rest of the story happened. Super slow burn—you'll see them together at the very end.

xx

Chapter Four: The One Who's Sick

Potions three days a week is shaping up to always be a riot because that's when Sirius sees the most of Snape. There's an odd number of both Gryffindors and Slytherins in first year, which means Snape gets to partner Lily Evans, who apparently has been best friends with him for, like, almost a decade? Sirius doesn't know the details and doesn't particularly care, beyond it being sort of annoying that Evans is always breathing down their necks every time they get into it with Snape.

Because they do keep getting into it with Snape, probably more than they should, and having Evans there to tell them off for it just serves as a reminder that maybe he should back off and leave the bloke alone—that maybe they're going overboard. Snape may be a snide, self-righteous little berk, but that doesn't mean he deserves for James to spend two hours every night for a week learning how to cast a Pus Squirting Hex just so he can make yellow fluid erupt from Snape's nose for the fun of it.

By the time there have been about three weeks of this, Remus brings up what Sirius knows they're all thinking around ten o'clock at night on a Thursday as they're lounging in the dormitory. They usually just sit in their individual beds or, sometimes, on the floor, but tonight, James followed Sirius right onto his bed and is hanging out at the foot of it, kicking his feet intermittently against its base, while Sirius sits with his weight on his hip and his head held in one hand. He and James aren't touching or anything, but James has plopped down kind of close to Sirius's feet, and it's kind of nice—makes Sirius feel like there's somebody in this castle who's not afraid to get close to him even though every pureblood knows that the Blacks are crazy cakes.

"So I was thinking I might try and learn an instant scalping hex," James is saying. When he glances behind himself at Sirius for a split second, he's grinning. "I found it in Basic Hexes for the Busy and Vexed. It doesn't actually scalp you—it just makes you go bald—but I'd love to see the look on Snivellus's face when I do one on him."

"James," says Remus seriously, "don't you think you're being a little…?"

"Hilarious?" James finishes for him. "Come on. We'd be doing him a favor—he obviously doesn't know how to wash his hair properly. D'you think he even bothers to shower?—because he smells bad, too."

Sirius can't see it from this angle, but he thinks James probably screws his nose up or something because Peter is laughing. Remus, however, doesn't seem convinced. "I mean, yeah, but he's still…" He trails off.

"Rem, come on. Don't tell me you don't think it's funny or that the little bugger doesn't have it coming."

Remus glances at Peter (who is laughing), seems to decide he won't get any help from him, and quickly looks next at Sirius. He's got a point, and Sirius considers backing him up—but James is sitting on Sirius's bed today. Even if it's a stupid reason, Sirius doesn't want to do anything to jeopardize that.

So instead, he says, "Oh, come on, Remus. Live a little, why don't you?"

Remus still looks troubled, but he drops it after that. Sirius tries not to think about the nagging feeling in the back of his brain and concentrates on being here, with four Gryffindors who somehow actually like him. He pokes James's waist with his toes, and James laughs out loud.

James spends most of the week perfecting his instant scalping hex, mostly practicing on Peter, who volunteers himself for the job. The spell is ready to go by Friday, when they've got Potions with Snape again right after lunch. They're early, which means Professor Slughorn hasn't arrived yet, and Snape is sitting at his usual desk up front with Evans, engrossed in conversation about the details of the Sleeping Draught they made on Wednesday. Sirius is sitting with Emmeline again, but they both look up when they hear James call, "Hey, Snivellus!"

"Leave him alone! Don't you ever get tired of listening to yourself?" Evans fumes.

Snape scowls and exhales hard through his nostrils. "It's fine, Lily," he says in a very pissed-off voice.

"It's not fine. It's—"

But Sirius doesn't get to hear what, exactly, it is because James chooses that moment to whisper the incantation and aim his wand at the top of Snape's head. Instantly, Snape's hair all stands up on its ends and rips itself out of his scalp before falling to the floor in a wave around him. "You're welcome," James snickers, puffing out his chest. "That should help tide you over until you learn to take a proper shower, greaseball."

Sirius and Emmeline snort with laughter as Snape's eyes narrow. Sirius is expecting him to treat it the same as he's treated all the rest of James's torment—with that insufferable air of restraining himself, of being above all of it—but something in Snape seems to snap this time. Evans has barely had an instant to complain before Snape whips out his wand, aims it at James, and mutters something under his breath that makes blood start to splatter out of James's eyes.

The grin is still on James's face, but it morphs into more of a sneer as his red-spattered eyes take on a steely glaze. "Sev, don't," Evans is saying. "He's not worth—"

But nobody is paying any attention to Evans; Sirius looks from James to Snape and back again as James takes aim with his wand again, and then—they're on their feet. James hits Snape with the Trip Jinx he'd learned for just this purpose last week, but when Snape falls spectacularly to the ground, he manages to hang onto his wand, roll onto his stomach, and get James with something that causes his ears to shrivel up. Apparently, the curse is painful because James winces and clutches his ears with his hands, his wand clattering to the floor. "You'll pay for that one, Snivellus," he jeers, but before he can dive for his wand again, Snape's gotten an alarming amount of foam—white, tinged with red—to start bubbling out of James's mouth.

"What is wrong with you?" Sirius barks. The whole class is watching the exchange now, and the room is otherwise silent. "I always knew you were an oddball, but I had no idea you were such a Dark Arts lover, Snivellus. What, did you steal your daddy's wand at home to practice curses before you got here?"

Something about Sirius's words seems to hit a nerve because Snape turns his wand on him next. Fortunately for Sirius—or maybe unfortunately; he was sort of looking forward to the opportunity to get Snape back for making Sirius's friend bleed—Slughorn chooses that moment to stride through the doorway. "You're not dueling in class, my boys, are you?" he chortles, as if the whole situation is vaguely amusing to him.

"Snape got James, Professor," Peter supplies.

"I can see that," Slughorn says. James is still cowering on the ground, but he lets go of his ears a moment later after Slughorn aims his wand at him and mutters what sounds like a countercurse. His ears grow back to their proper size, but he's still foaming at the mouth. "That's ten points from Slytherin, Snape, and might I suggest you fish out your wizard's hat to help your, uh—situation there?"

The Gryffindors, not including James, roar with laughter; even Remus cracks a smile that he hides behind his hand. "Pettigrew, take him to the Hospital Wing, will you?" instructs Slughorn. "For the rest of you, today each pair will be starting a batch of a simple cure for boils…"

With James's arm slung over Peter's shoulder, the two of them stagger out of the classroom while Slughorn runs them through the textbook's instructions on how to brew the cure. Sirius can hardly wait fo Slughorn to stop talking—he may not be willing to admit it to anybody, but he looks forward every day to the lessons he gets to do with Emmeline—but they've hardly been brewing and chatting for ten minutes before Slughorn, surprisingly, approaches their desk.

"Looking good, my boy!" he says, pointedly addressing Sirius without looking at Emmeline.

"Thanks, sir," says Sirius, not entirely sure where Slughorn is going with this.

"You know," Slughorn continues in a conspiratorial voice, "every Black I've ever had has been in my house." That's right—he's head of Slytherin, Sirius remembers. "I was rather disappointed to see you break my streak during the Sorting Ceremony."

"I hate to disappoint you, sir, but I think I'll stick with Gryffindor."

"Oho, and he's cheeky, too! Say, I'm having a little get-together in my office two weeks from tomorrow, just to mingle and introduce my star students to one another. You'll be there, I trust?"

Oh—so that's what Slughorn is after. Andy's mentioned the Slug Club to Sirius before—she and Cissy are both in it, and so was Bella. To tell the truth, Sirius isn't feeling particularly keen on sucking up to Slughorn, but he figures it could be interesting. Anyway, Slughorn will probably also invite James and Remus, which will give them all something to do besides hanging in the dormitory or going down to the kitchens.

Peter's not much good at Potions, though, or much magic at all so far, so Sirius says quickly, "Sure. It's all right if I bring someone along with me, though, isn't it?"

"Absolutely. I'll let you get back to it, then!"

As Slughorn makes his rounds across the room, he also invites Damocles Belby from Slytherin; Snape; Evans; Alice; and, after he returns from the Hospital Wing, James—but to Sirius's surprise, he doesn't say a word about the party to Remus. He considers bringing it up to Remus after class, but he doesn't want to make Remus feel bad or anything—so instead, when he and the other Gryffindors are on their way from Potions to History of Magic, he says loudly to the blokes, "So James, Slughorn says we're welcome to bring dates next weekend. I'll bring Remus along if you want to take Peter?"

Peter grins as James agrees. "Thanks, mate," Remus mutters to Sirius. He's looking determinedly at his feet and not at Sirius, but he looks—

—grateful. Remus looks grateful.

xx

Word spreads surprisingly fast among the first years, at least, that the Black boy from Gryffindor and his best mate are bringing blokes to the party. At first, Sirius is terrified that he's screwed up by suggesting that he and James bring Remus and Peter along—that they're going to resent him now for getting gossip started about them—but to Sirius's relief, James totally leans into it. He plays up the rumors to anybody he catches talking about them, cracks a bunch of jokes about his own sexuality, and gets in the habit of slinging an arm around Peter's shoulders and smirking at anybody who dares stare at him while he's doing it.

The weird thing, though, is that after a few days of this, James doesn't limit his affectionate behavior to communal spaces, and he doesn't limit it to just Peter, either. Like, on Sunday night, they're all sitting on the floor of the dormitory when James straight up lays his head on Remus's shoulder and keeps it there until he gets up twenty minutes to swap Chocolate Frog cards with Peter. And on Tuesday, he plunks down on Sirius's bed again, and they brush up against each other a whole bunch as James crowds in next to him against the headboard.

It's Wednesday night, and James is sitting awfully close to Peter on the dormitory floor, when Sirius can't contain himself anymore. "James, can I just—?"

"What's up?"

"You're not…? I mean, you're not into any of us like that, are you?"

Mercifully, James takes this in stride and laughs it off. "No, man, I'm not. How many times do I have to tell you that we're brothers now before you believe it?"

"But you keep, well, touching everybody. I actually have a brother at home, and we've never—acted like that around each other, I mean, not since we were really little, maybe. Blokes don't…"

"Yeah, I know they don't," says James easily, "but maybe they should, you know? Why shouldn't we be allowed to show each other we care about each other? Because stupid society says it makes you gay? Society tells you that purebloods can't be friends with Muggle-borns, or start families with them, but Peter's still mates with you and me—and Remus wouldn't even be here if purebloods and Muggle-borns couldn't get married. If I want to hug and sit next to my friends, I'm going to hug and sit next to my friends—I mean, as long as it doesn't bother you lot."

"It doesn't bother me," Sirius says quickly. "I just… I wanted to…"

James rolls his eyes. "It's okay, mate, seriously. If you don't know what I mean by something, you're allowed to ask me—that goes for anything."

"And all the rumors?"

He shrugs. "If people are going to freak out about boys going to parties together or whatever, then we may as well have some fun confusing the hell out of them."

Sirius relaxes after that, and he and Peter start to follow James's lead. Peter starts leaning against James at mealtimes; Sirius lets his ring and pinky fingers just brush against Remus's in the common room and just grins at anybody who dares to whisper about it. Remus is the only one of the four who keeps acting cagey about it, but when Sirius mutters to him in Herbology on Thursday, "Is this all freaking you out? I can stop if you want me to," Remus shakes his head, his lips twitching, so he can't be uncomfortable—maybe he's just shy.

The one time Sirius feels properly awkward about all of it is when Emmeline brings it up the next week in Charms. "You and Lupin aren't actually dating, right?" she asks after trying and failing to light the tip of her wand with Lumos for the millionth time in ten minutes. "And Potter and Pettigrew aren't dating, either?"

"No, we're not, but don't tell anyone I told you that. James thinks the rumors are hilarious."

He doesn't know why, exactly, his face is heating up—after all, it's not like he and Emmeline are dating, and anyway, when Sirius thinks about having an actual girlfriend to go on dates and have serious talks with about their relationship status, he just feels a little overwhelmed. Sure, he likes Emmeline—he might even like like Emmeline—but that doesn't mean he wants anything to happen just now, and if he doesn't want anything to happen, there's no reason for him to feel embarrassed or pleased by the fact that she's checking to see if he's single.

"Do you think they're hilarious?" she pries. Thankfully, she's scrutinizing her wand and doesn't seem to notice the redness in his cheeks.

"I mean, it just started because I wanted Peter and Remus to get to come to the party with us. I didn't mean to start… all of this. But they're rolling with it, so I can roll with it, too. I'd rather do that than have us fight about it—and I guess it's nice knowing I have friends who like me, I dunno."

"Of course you've got friends who like you. All the girls like you, too, you know—well, maybe not Lily, but you know how she is. And I like you."

"Thanks, Vance," Sirius mutters. Just when he was regaining control over his face, it gets all hot again.

"You can call me Emmeline, you know. You don't have to call me by my surname."

Sirius can't believe his luck these last couple of minutes. "Okay. You, too. Do you prefer Emmeline, or can I call you Em?"

"Whatever. Either. Both. I think of myself as Emmeline—I think it's prettier—but everybody called me Em back home, and I liked that they wanted to give me a nickname, you know, kind of like how you are about the other blokes being affectionate. Do you have a nickname?"

"I mean, my younger brother called me Sissi when we were really little, but don't tell anyone I told you that, either."

"Ha! Yeah, okay. Your secret's safe."

He doesn't want to push his luck, but—she said she likes him. She said to call her by her name. So he hedges, "I feel like I haven't seen a lot of you outside of class—I mean, I see you at meals and in the common room sometimes, but that's with everybody. Want to hang out tonight? I can show you where you can sneak down to the kitchens for extra dessert after hours."

"Yeah, for sure, only we should practice Lumos some more while we're down there—next to Alice and Lily and Lupin, I'm starting to feel stupid over here."

"Deal," says Sirius, and he doesn't think it's a coincidence that he gets the charm right on the next try.

xx

When he tells the other blokes later that day about his plans with Emmeline, they thankfully don't give him any crap about him having a crush on her or anything. James just rolls his eyes and says, "Yeah, okay, go ahead and abandon us. I'll forgive you if you bring us back a bunch of pastries."

"Done."

"I, uh…" stammers Remus. "It's just going to be you and Peter tonight, if Sirius is going to be out with Vance. I actually won't be around tonight, either. I—my mum wants me home again for the night."

"Again?" James says.

"On a weeknight?" asks Peter, frowning. "You'll still be back in time for classes tomorrow morning, right?"

"Maybe… maybe not. I'll probably have to skip Transfiguration and Herbology—and maybe History of Magic, too. I don't know yet."

James raises his eyebrows. "But—those are the only classes we have tomorrow. That's literally the whole day. And McGonagall is okay with you just skipping like that? I mean, is your mum so sick that it can't wait until Friday night?"

"And she didn't know she needed you back until today? I mean, you could have gone two nights ago," Sirius points out.

"You didn't get any owls this morning," Peter says.

"I… um…" Remus looks like he's struggling with himself, and he scoots backward on his bed and draws up his knees. "Okay. Okay. It's not my mum, all right? It's—it's me. I'm the one who's sick."

"What?" says Sirius blankly, while James demands, "With what?"

"It's nothing life-threatening or anything, is it?" says Peter anxiously. "Because this is the second time you've missed school in a month, and—"

"I'm not dying," says Remus quickly, staring at the bedspread and not looking up for the life of him. "I'll be fine. It's just—something I have to live with. I don't want to talk about it, okay? I don't like talking about it, and I didn't want you lot to know because I don't want anybody treating me differently, and—"

"We're not going to treat you any differently," James assures him. "So you, what, start feeling bad and go to the Hospital Wing so Madam Pomfrey can manage your symptoms?"

"I guess."

"Well, then, we'll come and visit you," says Sirius. "Tonight. I can bring you back food from the kitchens, too."

"No!" says Remus so forcefully that Peter actually flinches. "I mean—it's fine. I'll be fine. The potions Madam Pomfrey gave me last month really knocked me out—there's no point coming."

James shrugs. "Suit yourself. Rem—I'm sorry you're sick. Is it a lifelong thing? I mean, are you ever going to get better?"

Still staring down, Remus smiles weakly. "No. I'm not. But it's fine, seriously."

It doesn't sound fine to Sirius, but Remus obviously doesn't want to talk about it, so he lets the matter drop. "We'll catch you up on what you miss in the morning, but you might be on your own with History of Magic—I can't ever keep my eyes open in there."

"Oh, that's okay. I'll get notes from Alice—she pays attention."

Evans pays attention in History of Magic, too, but it's quickly becoming apparent that she's not going to be making friends with anybody else in Gryffindor any time soon. She gave up sitting with the other first years during anything, even peripherally, after the first week; nowadays, she eats meals alone at the end of the table and works alone in the Gryffindor-only classes, and he's never seen her spend any time in the common room after hours or on weekends. She works with Benjy Fenwick and Elisabeth Clearwater from Hufflepuff in Herbology, and the only words Sirius has managed to get out of her have been her telling him off in Potions for picking on Snape.

Maybe she's right about one thing, but it's like Sirius thought before: he's not going to lay off Snivellus now, with things going so well between him and the other blokes. Anyway, they're not the ones who drew blood from the other—that's been all Snape, and it's Evans's problem if she's okay with that. She and Snape can practice Dark hexes on each other, for all Sirius cares. He knows who his mates are now, and he's fine with it if Evans isn't one of them.