Chapter 157

Birthday Surprises

Sirius yawned as he walked into the great hall the memorial burning overhead.

The teachers had never removed the Marauder's farewell to Andrea from the back wall of the great hall, and it had grown a few names after the Christmas holiday. All the names of those who had died on the train home had joined her becoming a list that was long enough to be depressing. There had been no post-Christmas prank. After listening to Dumbledore speech the mood was all wrong. He told them about the new locks that had been placed on every compartment door so they could prevent unwanted intruders. There had been guards patrolling the cars too, James thought they might have been people from that Order thing Dumbledore was talking about as they weren't ministry.

As nice as it would have been to cheer everyone up with a nice charm, it felt like it wouldn't have been tactful for the silverware and plates to start dancing around right then. So James added names from the newspaper under Andrea's in the middle of the night instead. Not as cheery as they would have liked, but it felt good and they'd seen several people give a tearful smile at their friend's names when they saw it, so it had helped some people at least.

He sat next to James in their usual spot resting his head on his arms and yawned again.

"Me too," Remus said from across the table. Sirius wasn't sure if it was tea or coffee he was stirring a frightening amount of sugar into, the smell of maple syrup in the air was overwhelming enough that he couldn't tell. It was so overwhelming that Remus had sworn off pancakes for the rest of his life by their second year.

"What are you talking about? You slept like a log, I had Mr. Cassanovia over here throwing stuff at me all night long." Sirius glared at Remus while stealing a muffin from James' plate. There was a yelp of protest as James tried to get it back before Sirius licked it and he relented to getting a new one.

"You should have just thrown it back at him," Remus chuckled.

"I did."

"You're still going with me to Hogsmeade today right?" James ignored their complaints and irritated Sirius further by looking perky and excitable.

"Like I have a choice."

"Nope."

"Do you plan on going to any classes at all today?"

"I'll go to muggle studies."

Remus sighed through the smile on his face. Sirius wasn't sure what entertained Remus more, James tormenting Sirius or the chance to watch James make a fool of himself.

"I've practically already passed the exam, what do I need to go to class for?" James grinned that cocky grin of his.

"To avoid detention and keep your captain's badge." Remus' smile didn't change as he watched James attempt to avoid his eyes and Sirius snickered at him until his wondering eyes managed to find Evans. Her hair was done up all nice, with braids and ornaments and she had on jewelry that even Sirius, as little as he cared to scrutinize, could tell was new. He half thought that she'd decided to wear everything her friends had given her for her birthday at once and he begrudgingly commended her for managing to make it all work without looking gaudy and vain. James' mum could have taken notes, the lack of makeup would have been at the top of that list.

James, of course, couldn't look away. He didn't yell out like he had before. Sirius fancied the thought that he'd learned some tact, but he knew better than to hope for that. More likely, he was busy trying to decide if she was missing something, something he could get her in Hogsmeade today. Sirius just hoped he wouldn't decide to get her something heavy, that way it wouldn't hurt when she threw it back in his face.

He'd warned James this was a terrible idea, and if he'd thought James was actually in love with the bird he'd have seriously objected to the plan, as it was a lot of work to put in just to end up rejected but he had no objection to watching James knock his own pride down a few notches.

"Well, if neither of you is going to bother with classes today we'd best get going on our own, Wormtail." The two of them stood and headed out, Peter looking like he wanted to go to Hogsmeade with them but wasn't willing to say anything.

James was still looking at Evans and didn't acknowledge their departure so Sirius took the opportunity to eat his own breakfast, avoiding the pancakes without realizing why.

#

Sirius was wrong, they hadn't made it back in time for muggle studies. He refused to admit disappointment in missing a class so he said nothing as James started nitpicking at every decoration, changing the music so many times Sirius thought it was in the triple digits by now, deciding on a better color for the streamers until Sirius enchanted them to change colors on its own out of frustration. James was delighted, missing the point by a mile.

"What if she decides to go to the library after class?" Sirius asked throwing himself on one of the armchairs deciding he was finished, whether James was or not.

"Nobody studies on their birthday." James was adjusting one of the containers of confetti for the twentieth time.

"People do other things at the library."

"Like what?"

"Hell if I know." Sirius yawned again.

Peter ran through the door, his mousy face pink and his breathing heavy, that didn't mean much for Peter though. After he'd got off his last class he'd been assigned as a look out.

"Someone's coming," he warned as though it was a big revelation.

Sirius waved the Marauder's Map at him. "We know, Wormtail. You're supposed to be keeping them from coming in."

"Oh," he stopped for a moment before his eyes went wide. "Oops."

Sirius groaned as Peter ran back out. "Are you done yet?"

"Nearly."

"You said that an hour ago." Sirius watched the map as Peter's dot found the dots coming up the stairs. He imagined Wormtail blustering about to find an excuse for them to not go back to the common room. If he was smart he'd just say someone let off a dungbomb, no one would argue with that, but Pete wasn't that smart.

"I was nearly done an hour ago."

"Well, wake me up before she throws something at you." Sirius yawned again.

"She's not going to throw things at me."

"She'd better throw things, or I want a refund."

"You didn't spend any money."

"It's not money I want refunded. I want my full night's sleep back."

James laughed before stepping back and looking at the confetti rig examining it for any other perceived imperfections.

"She's coming."

James squealed, causing Sirius to pull himself up to look at him in the hope that he'd slipped and fallen. He was disappointed though, James' face was red but there was nothing for Sirius to laugh at. "If you tell anyone I made that noise I'll clock you," he warned.

"I wouldn't embarrass myself like that." Sirius threw himself back down, "I'm serious though, she's coming. Alice, Marline, and Zoe are with her."

"No Mary?"

Sirius hummed as he looked for her, "with her boyfriend."

"Who hangs out with their boyfriend on their friend's birthday?"

"Someone who already gave that friend their present."

James disagreed and looked around again. "What should I do? Should I stand here? Meet her at the door?…"

"Hide," Sirius answered and James grumbled coming to sit on another armchair before popping back up in anxiety.

The door opened as he paced, and Sirius began to wonder if James was more emotionally invested than either of them had thought. He fussed like someone who was frightened of rejection, but nothing scared James enough to make him act like this, so he must really want it to make her happy for the sake of making her happy, or he wanted the attention.

Sirius thought it was a little of the first but mostly the latter. He'd find some way to make it about himself, she'd get offended and they'd fight and he wouldn't accomplish either goal.

Alice's expression of delight was the first reaction they got. Then Zoe giggled, "Looks like it's safe, Lils. Just some confetti." Sirius saw her throw a handful at Evans.

Alice beamed at them, "We saw Peter down stairs and assumed some kind of prank was in progress."

James pouted, "we wouldn't do that," leading to a snort from Evans as she looked around. Sirius could have sworn there was a blush on her cheeks, but it was hard to tell since her skin reddened too easily.

"He was supposed to be hiding," Sirius said with a sigh. Marline's face went bright red the moment she realized he was there too. It wasn't very flattering with her pink shirt.

"He wasn't doing it very well."

"How did you get the streamers to change colors?" Evans asked, speaking for the first time. It was more friendly sounding than Sirius had expected, but she wasn't the type to pick apart something until she had a good reason for it, so he'd have to wait for his entertainment.

Naturally, James took all the credit for the streamers. Sirius didn't really care, he was only listening for the eventual outbreak of fighting. Other people started to filter in, Peter following explaining how exactly a dragon could have pooped in the common room. He'd apparently taken dungbombs to the least logical extreme and tried to convince people of that. Remus came in after them all his face red with laughter. Sirius was disappointed, he'd rather the inevitable fight have been a bit more private, but once Gryffindors saw an excuse to party there was little chance any of them were going to leave.

Alice went around taking pictures with her new camera while Zoe and Marline attempted to convince Sirius to join in a conversation, turning to Remus and Peter when Sirius didn't cooperate. He hadn't heard any signs of a fight yet and Evans had moved on from her reluctant conversation with James. She was clearly trying hard to be nice, or James was actually being tactful, Sirius wasn't nieve enough to think it was the latter.

"Bet you a chocolate frog they start fighting before dark," Remus threw himself down on the love seat, Sirius only just managed to move his legs in time.

"I'm hoping it won't take that long. I'm bored."

"Well it's already 3, it'll get dark around five thirty, I think Lily can pretend to appreciate it for two and a half hours." Remus shrugged and looked back at James who was attempting to discretely follow Evans around. Sirius wasn't sure James knew how to be subtle but he got points for trying at least. You could always rely on Remus to know when the sun goes down, so it really would be only two and a half hours before sunset.

"But how long can James go without giving her an excuse to stop pretending?"

"That is the question, isn't it. After the fiasco earlier this week with that Ravenclaw first year she's already pretty sore at him."

Sirius laughed, "don't know what she was so upset about, the ruddy idiot deserved it and we didn't even do anything serious. She should be proud of James, he wanted to curse that Lockhart brat so bad he gave you his wand."

"He reminded me a lot of James, actually." Remus turned away from James' attempts to talk to Evans again.

"At least Prongs has the skills to back it up. I heard a group of Ravenclaws gossiping about how bad Lockhart's grades are. He's got nothing to brag about."

"That doesn't mean anything, besides that's where James got this whole stupid idea, isn't it?"

"Probably," Sirius nodded, " but there is one major difference even if you ignore the skill gap between them," Sirius smiled, would pick on James to the end of time, but the idea of comparing his mate to that... that self-important tart was taking it a bit too far.

"What's that?"

"James did it for someone else," Sirius said before suddenly distracted by a sound he was ready to drop everything to listen to.

"Not on your life, Potter!" The voice was high-pitched enough that Sirius was quite sure he'd get his price of admission, and more, as he searched over the back of the loveseat for the sound.

"Or at least he pretended to."

"I'd say I told you so, but that wouldn't do any good," Sirius said with a grin as he leaned against the doorway of their shared restroom. James was attempting to heal the bruise on his face.

Definitely worth the price of admission.

"Stuff it," James muttered glaring at his reflection in the mirror, it wasn't healing properly. Sirius wasn't sure what she threw at him or what she managed to Hex him with afterward but he'd been impressed. Now seeing James failed to heal the black eye serious knew he'd have to compliment her next time he saw her. It was clearly a work of genius. Maybe he could get her to tell him what spell it was, probably not. She'd just suspect he was going to use it on some unsuspecting first year, despite the fact that he hadn't bullied a first year in months.

Stupid James and his stupid badge.

Why was the captain doing a better job of making him follow the rules than the prefect?

"She talked to me," James said, distracting Sirius from thinking on that any further.

"What?"

"She talked to me." He grinned stupidly got his own reflection, "like actual conversation talking."

"She asked you about the streamers. And you took credit for them even though they were mine. That hardly counts as a conversation." Sirius wondered about James' feelings a little, not something he cared to do much, but was a little worried that James was starting to get a little too invested in this game of his.

"Sure it does." James gave up on healing his eye and did a spell to hide it, it would heal on its own eventually, Evans wasn't that mean.

"She threw a book at you!"

James laughed it off, "she's cute when she's mad."

Sirius groaned shaking his head and moving away from the doorway. "You're hopeless. You know that?"

"Yeah, I know." He grinned now at Sirius' reflection in the mirror, "thanks for helping me with everything anyway."

"Thank me by never keeping me up all night for something this stupid again." Sirius gave him a glare but he couldn't help and grin despite himself.

"I can't promise anything." James followed him out of the bathroom.

Sirius threw a pillow at him.