Chapter 3.

"Sirius might take a little while to warm up to."

What a vast understatement that turned out to be.

Lily had met them in the driveway before they had even managed to get her luggage out of the car. She immediately ran straight to Beth, throwing her arms around her and hugging her tightly. "I'm sorry, I don't usually hug people straight away," she apologized, "but I feel like we're already friends."

Beth didn't hesitate to hug her back, her excitement practically bursting. After years of hearing about the famous Lily Evans, she was finally there. "I'm so happy to finally meet you!" she'd exclaimed, smiling widely when Lily responded similarly.

It was when she pulled back that she saw Sirius.

He seemed alright enough from afar. Sure, he was obviously trying to give off the "bad boy" vibe with the long hair and the beat up leather jacket (which was entirely unnecessary given that it was nearly 80 degrees), but Beth had to admit that he wore the look well. He was casually leaning to one side of the doorway, propping a foot up to balance for good measure. James had loved writing her about the different "adventures" (as he called them) they had, and from what she'd read, he seemed to be just as "cool" as James had described.

The second he opened his mouth, however, Beth realized that she would have to add some adjectives of her own to her personal description of him.

"Sirius, come meet Beth," James called over. With a flash of impeccably white teeth, he sauntered over to her with a confidence that would put Marlon Brando to shame. Beth had to physically stop herself from smirking.

"Hi, I'm Beth," she introduced herself, holding out her hand.

He lifted her hand up to his lips instead of shaking it, kissed it, and replied in an overly exaggerated British accent, "Charmed, I'm sure."

It took everything in Beth not to roll her eyes at the move, instead opting to lift her eyebrows and yank her hand away. Luckily, Lily took notice and promptly hit him on the backside of his head.

"Ow, Evans," he cried, rubbing the sore spot. "What was that for?"

"We talked about how you were going to behave," she chastised.

"You talked, I listened," he corrected, leaning over to James. "Honestly, good luck with her, Prongs. She's a piece of work."

James roughly shoved him away. "Oi, that's my fiancée you're talking about, Pads."

Sirius made eye contact with Beth and winked. "I rest my case," he said.

Beth took in a deep breath. Please don't let this be a long summer, please don't let this be a long summer…

Ten minutes (and one long conversation about how Sirius could be a gentleman for just a few moments and help carry Beth's bags into the house) later, the four of them set off to show Beth the place. James took the lead with Lily, leaving Sirius to trail behind Beth as they went through the house. Beth immediately felt uncomfortable as she felt Sirius inching his way closer to her, stopping only when she drove her elbow into his stomach.

"Oof," he grunted, holding his stomach. Beth tossed him back a "Oh, did I hurt you, I'm sorry," for appearance's sake before turning back around, trying to steel her mind as she relished her victory. She wasn't one to use unnecessary force when dealing with issues, and in a moment, she regretted her action. She had, after all, just met him.

She'd get over it.

"As you can see, there's not too much here, but it's home," James said over his shoulder, taking her down the hallway. "You've seen your room. Down the hall to the right is the bathroom, and across from that is my room. We're using the space across from you as Lily's storage area until she officially moves in. There's a bed in there though, so if someone comes stumbling in and I'm not home, you can usually just show them to this general area."

"Of course," Sirius leaned in to whisper in her ear. "I wouldn't oppose hopping in with you every now and again."

Beth shot him a look of disgust, deciding to forgo a second elbow to his stomach, but the move seemed to only egg him on. He simply wagged his eyebrows, obviously encouraged by the response he got, and gently ushered her to continue following James. It was then that she realized it would take a little more than an elbow and a dirty look to stop him. The attention he was getting was exactly what he wanted.

She'd have to think of another tactic to get him to stand down.

Lily motioned over to the large area in front of them. "This space is essentially whatever you want it to be. James hasn't completely grasped the idea of a living room and dining room being separate areas, so don't mind all of the food stains. For those who do care, there is a table set up over there, but I don't remember the last time it was used to actually eat food off of."

"Hey, James," Sirius called from behind Beth. "Remember the last thing I ate food off of? Do we still have her number?"

Lily turned around and pulled Beth farther away from Sirius, an action that gave Beth an immense amount of faith in her future friendship with Lily. "Ignore him," she said, casting a look to Sirius. "He's been extra antsy ever since the engagement announcement. He can't stand the thought of me taking his husband away from him."

"I thought we decided he was my wife," James joked, putting an arm around his friend.

"Honestly, Evans," Sirius replied. "You really think I'd look better in a tux than a wedding dress?"

"I think you'd look better in a casket, but unfortunately no one asked me," she retorted. She grasped Beth's arm gently and ushered her towards another room. "They never take a break," she complained under her breath, causing Beth to giggle alongside her.

"You seem to handle them pretty well, though," Beth offered.

"Yeah, well, I've lived with them for the past seven years," Lily said, taking in a deep breath. "To be completely honest, I was always rather jealous of the set up you had. Spend a week with them during the summer and then a phone call at Christmas? Sometimes that doesn't sound too bad."

The final room Lily had to show was the kitchen. It was modest and quaint with barely any space available, and Beth decided she'd never loved a kitchen more. "There's not a lot," Lily explained, showing her the basics. "But it works for James pretty well, and anytime I come over we're usually either eating take out or something I've already prepared. Don't worry though, I'll start bringing food for you too whenever I visit, so long as you promise to do the same for me."

Beth looked up from the stove she was inspecting. "You don't live here?"

Lily smiled softly. "No, we decided to take a little more traditional route before we set up a permanent home. It works alright for now and helps keep the parents happy." At that moment, a large thud was heard, shaking the entire house before a muffled "We're okay!" was shouted throughout the house. "Plus," Lily added a second later. "A break from them isn't always awful."

Beth laughed at Lily's honesty. "Having second thoughts, are we?"

Lily immediately shook her head. "Oh, no, I couldn't ever give up James. Or Sirius, for that matter," she admitted. "I know he's a bit much, but he calms down after a while. He just has to put on a show for you first, you know, and show that he's all that and a bag of crisps. Once he realizes you're not impressed or you stun him into silence, he subdues quite a bit."

"So he's not always that…" Beth paused for a moment, trying to find the right word to describe the person she'd just met. "Loud?" she finally settled on.

Lily guffawed at the word she chose. "Loud. What a polite adjective," she mumbled to herself before turning back towards Beth. "He's mental is what he is. It'll be obnoxious stories and disgusting comments for a while. He plays himself up to be the 'best' at what people perceive him as, you know, with the whole 'bad boy' thing. He's basically just testing to see what will get a rise out of you. He's one of the greatest people you'll ever meet once you finally crack him, though."

"Really?" Beth asked, her tone laced with disbelief.

"Honestly," Lily assured her. "Once you have him on your side, he won't leave. I can't remember exactly, but there was this one moment fifth year, I believe, where I was at the library and hiding from life. One of my 'friends' had just called me a mu—um, a really offensive word I won't repeat, you can use your imagination, and I was sitting in a corner just sobbing. It was," Lily ran her fingers through her hair, obviously uncomfortable at having to relive the memory. "It was awful. I don't know what he was doing there, but Sirius found me. At first I thought that he was just going to poke more fun at me, so I told him to bugger off, but he stayed there. He sat down next to me and, without saying a word, just put his arm around me. I don't know how long we were there, but he stayed with me until I was done." She smiled slightly to herself, and Beth found herself smiling with her. "We haven't spoken about it since, but we both know that was the day we officially became friends. I know for a fact that he'd drop everything to help me with something if I asked him to." Lily looked off toward the doorway, smiling to herself as they listened to James and Sirius talk. "So, all that to say, he will get better. You just have to get there."

Beth glanced towards the entryway. "You think so?"

"I know so," Lily assured her. "He wouldn't be bugging you like he is if he didn't have some sort of attraction to you. You guys will be friends soon, I promise."

"What about his other friends? Are they that crazy?" Beth inquired.

"You mean Remus and Peter?"

"Yeah," Beth confirmed. "Are they anything like Sirius?"

Lily stared at her incredulously. "Has James told you absolutely anything?"

"I know everything about you," she teased. "James wasn't exactly interested in talking about how to get his friends to like him."

Lily laughed and turned to grab the kettle. "Well, if we're going to start talking about the Marauders, we're going to need some tea. This could take a while."

"The who?"

"They call themselves the Marauders," Lily explained, filling up the kettle with water. "You know, like pirates? They would go around school all of the time, trying to find secret passageways and hidden codes and all other kinds of nonsense. All it did was get them into heaps of trouble. But," Lily admitted, turning off the water and placing it on the stove, "they got rather good at it. Somehow, they even got me involved in a couple of different pranks they set up. Those boys have a talent for anything they set their minds to, and all it was spent on were jokes and pranks and—well, no, I guess some good came out of it for Remus' sake."

"What happened with Remus?" Beth pressed.

Lily turned her back and focused on adding some tea in the pot. "Oh, nothing. Sorry, there's just a lot to explain with him and most of it is personal details that only he could really tell you about. I think you'll really like Remus, though," she said, pivoting to face her, and Beth knew that whatever Lily had alluded to earlier was to be dropped.

"You think so?"

Lily nodded her head vigorously. "Oh, for sure," she promised. "He has a really strong head on his shoulders. He's one of the kindest people you'll ever meet too, and in a completely genuine way. He really cares about the well-being of all of them. He's also the most intellectual of the group, so if you like discussing authors and all of that, he's the one you'll want to turn to."

"Are you saying I'm not an intellectual?" Sirius suddenly emerged from the other room, joining them in the kitchen. He reached out for a tin full of cookies, offering the stash to Beth. "Don't let her fool you, darling. We were having a deep talk only minutes before you arrived."

"You were asking me whether I thought James looked better shirtless or in a suit," Lily said as Beth reached in and grabbed a cookie, trying to avoid the wink Sirius gave her.

"And it was invigorating conversation, was it not?"

"It was until you started adding your opinion."

"Oh, please, Lil," James added, entering the increasingly smaller space and reaching out to her. "We both know that Sirius' opinion is just as, if not more important than, yours." He placed a soft peck on her lips before she could respond, melting away the scowl she previously had on her face.

"Only now the question is," Sirius began, leaning across the kitchen island to stare at Beth. "What is Beth's opinion?"

Beth would have sent back a witty retort that would have them all blushing, but Lily intervened. "Would you let Beth breathe a bit? It's hardly fair for her to be subjected to this torture the second she gets off the plane."

"Alright," James complied. "We'll let her go for now. Beth, tell me if this crazy girl starts bothering you. I'll be sure to set her straight."

Lily smacked his arm and told him to knob off before returning her focus back to the tea. "Like I said, you'll get used to it." She took a deep breath and looked back at Beth, confused. "What were we talking about again?"

"Remus—"

"Remus!" Lily interrupted, lightly smacking her head. "Yes, you'll like him. He's extremely kind, unless you get him on a bad day. That doesn't happen too often though, so you most likely won't need to worry about that. Peter, on the other hand, is an absolute bowl of fluff. He made those cookies," Lily pointed to the one Beth was eating. "I don't know him quite as well, unfortunately, but he's an absolute sweetheart. You know for a fact that he'd do anything for his friends. He helps round them out. It's honestly a really great system they have going, the four of them."

Beth leaned in on her elbow and placed her chin in her hand, absolutely engaged by the subject. "So how do James and Sirius fit in? Remus is the intellectual, Peter is the sweetheart, what about them?"

"Well," Lily began, leaning in on her elbows as well. "That's the thing. They don't have one absolute quality that defines them. They're so close to each other that they're all each other, if that makes sense." Beth shook her head, prompting Lily to try to explain them in a different way. "I know, I'm rubbish at this. I'll get it through, though, I promise." She bit her lip in deep concentration, unknowingly bringing Beth back to a letter James had written her years before.

She does this thing when she's thinking really hard, he had written her. She'll scrunch up her eyes and bite her lip, staring off out of the corner of her eye, and you can just tell that she'll think up something extraordinary. Maybe one day she'll think up a reason to go out with me.

"I've got it," Lily proclaimed, breaking Beth out of her trance. "They're all essentially a poorly done copy of the other. The qualities that define James, for example, have been adopted into Remus' lifestyle, and then the same with all of the others. You'll see the same traits in each of them, but they've all adopted different parts of each other. So, the idea is that if you like at least two of them, you'll probably end up liking the others."

"And that's what happened with you?"

"More or less," she agreed, taking the screaming kettle off of the stove. "Oh, the biggest thing to know about them is that they all have little nicknames for each other."

Nicknames? Beth thought to herself. "Like, Jim?"

Lily laughed. "Oh, no, nothing normal. That would be entirely too boring." She reached up and opened a cabinet, pulling down two tea cups. "No, it's all based off of their favorite animal, or something like that. They call James "Prongs," because he likes deer, Sirius "Padfoot" because he likes dogs—which, if you ask me, is more of a double entendre than anything else. Remus likes wolves, so he's called "Moony," and Peter's known as "Wormtail" because of his obsession with rats, or something. You know, I'm not for sure that he actually likes rats, come to think of it."

Beth nodded softly. "That's certainly…original," she offered.

Lily shook her head as she poured the tea. "Beth, I legitimately do not know how I got myself tangled up with this lot."

"Because you love us," Sirius said, sauntering in again. He reached over Lily's head and grabbed a tea cup from the cabinet, going to pour himself a cup as well. Lily smacked his hand away.

"Excuse me, this isn't for you."

Sirius leaned over the kettle. "You've made enough to host the entire Queen's Guard."

"I made enough for me to get acquainted with Beth."

"Well, perhaps I'd like to get acquainted too," Sirius offered, filling his cup in spite of Lily's protests and going to stand beside her. "Has she told you a load of rubbish about me?"

"Only that you like to be called Padfoot," Beth supplied. "I'm afraid the only thing you have going for you right now is your first impression."

Lily sipped her tea. "That's a cue for you to change, Sirius."

"To change? No," Sirius said. looking Beth over. "Like it or not Lil, she doesn't entirely hate me." Beth raised her eyebrows, but found herself biting back a grin in the process.

"Oh, you think so?" Lily questioned.

Sirius nodded. "I'm feeling fairly confident. She would have told me to buzz off ages ago if she did."

"How do you know that's not what I'm thinking right now?" Beth asked him.

Sirius took a quick gulp of his tea before staring back at her. "Because you're an American woman, and by law all British men are required to be hot to you. I'm essentially doing all of this for you."

"So, you're hitting on me because no British woman is attracted to you?"

"Hitting on you?" Sirius repeated, acting offended. He clucked his tongue. "No, trust me, if I'm hitting on you, you'll know. But, in the mean time, who says we can't have a little fun?" He leaned in, as if to tell a whisper. "We can have contests to see who can be louder, us or James and Lily."

Lily stormed to the doorway. "James!" she shouted. "Come save your friend from your friend!"

Beth faced him full on, however, determined to not stand down. Meeting him eye for eye, she replied, "Are you that insecure about your skills in bed that you think the only way we could win is if we were in a contest?"

"That depends," Sirius shifted slightly closer to her, obviously trying to make her shrink away. She didn't. "How well can you drive a stick?" the question was positively dripping with innuendo, and Beth saw Lily close her eyes in embarrassment.

Beth, however, simply took her cup in her hands and lifted it to take a drink. "I don't like to test drive something that doesn't come highly recommended, or one that hasn't had much experience on the road."

Sirius lifted his eyebrows. "Trust me, sweetheart, I've got plenty of miles on me."

"Your right hand talks to you often, does it?"

James turned the corner and entered the room. "You called for me?" he asked Lily. She was staring with her mouth open wide at Beth though, who was staring intently at Sirius, who was staring at Lily with an equally wide mouth. James looked from person to person. "What did I miss?" he asked.

Lily took her cup back in her hand and laughed. "Just like I said, you're going to have to save your friend," she said, pointing towards Sirius, "from your friend," she finished, pointing at Beth.

Beth held the intense gaze between Sirius, adamant not to back down. She watched as a flash of wounded pride flicked past, followed immediately by an air of confidence, but soon quickly chased away by a look of intrigue. The intrigue held, and Beth watched as his face slowly shifted from one of shock to one of impressed bewilderment. She smiled softly at him, an unspoken moment of gloating passing between the two, before calmly taking another sip of her tea. He returned it, and Beth thought she could easily spend hours staring into his dark grey eyes. After a moment more, Sirius gently bowed away, picking up his cup.

"She's alright," he admitted to James before walking out of the kitchen.

Beth watched him leave before turning her focus to James, who was still confused at what had happened. "He's alright," she copied, not even attempting to hide her grin.

"Sirius might take a little while to warm up to."

What a vast understatement, she thought. I like him already.

A/N: You all are incredible. No, amazing. No, stupendous. I am so thankful for each and every one of you (especially you, nimblescrivener. Best beta ever). May you all have a better day than Leslie Knope with a plate of waffles.

Up next, Beth meets up with an old friend and Sirius does something nice (is that vague enough for you?)