By Admiral Albia
A stage shop, Sirius' girlfriend, and the start-of-term feast at Hogwarts. Really, need we say more?
Note; All quotes and songs will be marked. If it's not marked (and this
applies to Chapter 1 too), then I wrote it. Just to sort out any problems
which may arise with people saying `That's not Shakespeare!` when they
read Chapter 1, for example. I know it's not Shakespeare, I wrote
it. ^_^
On the same note, I'm going to try to make sure
Sirius sings songs that are in keeping with his timeline. That unfortunately
means that he will NOT be singing `Who Let the Dogs Out` unless someone
introduces it to him. You can expect 50's/60's rock and roll, though. ^_^
OK, so it's a little out, but I don't know much 70's music.
Disclaimer; If I owned Harry Potter, I would be working my arse off writing TOOTP(Book Five), not this crap. Sorry. I don't own Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis, either.
Warning; This chapter; Angsty, lots of swearing (Siri's talking about Peter).
Chapter Three; Birds, Bees, Snakes and Wolves
"In here," Sirius said, ducking into a small, dimly-lit
shop which, quite frankly, looked about as attractive to customers as a
herd of charging elephants, and about as grey. Then he stopped dead, causing
a huge pile-up behind him as everyone else attempted to get in. They peered
around him, trying to see what was causing the blockage.
Someone was already in the shop; a tall, blonde woman who was currently flicking through a sheaf of papers. Every now and then she would stop and look critically at the costume rack, then say something to the the small, round man who was apparently the shopkeeper. They seemed to know each other quite well, and Sirius was staring like he remembered her.
Remus took one look at his face, grinned wickedly and called out, "Hey, Emilily! Look who's here!" She spun round, and her eyes locked on Sirius, who to everyone's amazement began to back away; Remus rolled his eyes and shoved his friend into the shop. "Move, we want to get in."
And so it was that Sirius Black's first meeting with his girlfriend in fourteen years involved his tripping over the shop's doorstep, yelling loudly, falling flat on his face and sliding majestically across the floorboards until he hit the counter, where he stopped.
After a couple of seconds he stood up, brushed himself off, glared at Remus and said quietly, "Hi, Emilily..."
"Sirius. You're looking young."
"Age-Reversal. And I protest, I'm innocent, and I'm not a piece of dirt so stop damn' well looking at me like that!"
"Prove it." Sirius sighed.
"I'm fed up trying to prove it all the time," his voice receded as he vanished into the back room. "Why can't you just accept me?"
Remus and the shopkeeper exchanged glances. Then, quite suddenly, they both turned and followed him.
The others were left with Emilily, who they suddenly realised was crying. Looking very awkward, McGonagall (as the only person who knew her) patted her on the shoulder and began to murmur something to her... the woman looked up, surprised, then to their amazement said, "Oh, shit," and ran into the back room.
Things in the back room weren't going much better. Sirius wasn't crying, but he was squatting on the floor, hugging his knees and with his head between them. So far, Remus had only got him to say `Go away`, and hadn't seen his face at all. Tole, the shopkeeper, was chattering loudly, trying to fill the boy in on the latest news in the wizarding media while also finding his a stage-wand and some decent shoes. This wasn't working either, and the only thing he had got Sirius to say had been `size seven` and `too heavy`.
Still, Remus reflected, at least Tole was aware that Sirius was innocent, or at least was diplomatic enough not to say anything. Somehow, having Sirius depressed before he even began this test wasn't a good omen. Sighing, he looked around for something to cheer Sirius up with.
This was, arguably, the room to cheer Sirius up with. It was a part of the shop, because one room wasn't big enough; this room housed all the playscripts, songbooks,stage wands and shoes. Ordinarily, just being in here would make Sirius seem to come alive... obviously he needed a boost this time around.
Remus sighed. People had always said he was good at cheering them up, but what they neglected to mention was that he did this by telling them that his problems were bigger than theirs, and he couldn't do that with Sirius, because they weren't.
"Try this one," Tole said, thrusting another wand into the boy's hand. Sirius threw it into the air and raised his head just a fraction to watch it fall, the weight inside it rolling so that it landed with the handle down. He sighed.
"Fine, I'll take it. You know the drill with paying." The man nodded happily and went to root around for shoes. Remus picked up the wand.
"Well, you can do magic now..." Sirius barked out a laugh.
"Not for much longer. The Ministry are trying to frame me, you know that as well as I do." Remus nodded glumly. It hadn't taken them long to realise that, if Sirius was proved innocent, there would be massive embarrassment for the Ministry; and on top of that, they would have to pay him a huge amount in compensation. It was going to be an uphill struggle all the way.
"You know, this could be seen as giving in..."
"Who cares?" It was at this point that Emilily came running in.
"I care," Remus said pointedly.
"So do I," the woman declared, squatting down on the other side of him. "Sorry, Sirius..." Sirius unfolded himself and looked at her.
"You knew," he said accusingly. "You were the only bloody person I bloody told and now even you've bloody turned against me!" Emilily looked uncomfortable.
"Propaganda..."
"You didn't even try!" Sirius yelled, his voice cracking. "Propaganda my arse, there was no propaganda that night except for what Peter put out!"
"Um. That's the propaganda I meant..."
"You believed him over me."
"I didn't know he could turn into a rat, did I?"
"That's not the point and you know it." Alarm bells began to ring in Remus' head; Sirius had stopped yelling now, he was so angry that he was past yelling, and this was usually the point when he happened to someone... this was also the point when James steped in and miraculously calmed him down where nobody else could. Where nobody else could... damn.
"Nice day today, isn't it?" he said loudly. Sirius looked out of the window. It was raining.
"Not really."
"Look, how was I supposed to know he'd framed you if I didn't know he could turn into a rat?" Emilily grabbed her (possibly ex-) boyfriend by the shoulders. "You get angry, Sirius. Everyone knows you can get angry enough to do something like that. For God's sake, you're angry enough right now! And you said yourself that night that you were going out to kill, and I quote, `that treacherous bastard Peter`. Didn't you? Didn't you?"
"I say, look at the ceiling, it's all white. Isn't that fascinating?"
"I did, but you ought to know me well enough to know that I would only have killed Peter, not the entire bloody street! And in any case I took my stage wand, not my real one!"
"No you didn't!"
"Yes I did!"
"I must say, this shop is truly fantastic... I've really missed coming in here, y'know."
"...you did?"
"Yes! I was only intending to Stun him! I just wanted to scare the son of a bitch!"
"Oh." Emilily bit her lip. "God, Sirius, I'm sorry... I should've checked..."
"Too bloody right!" Sirius looked at her and sighed. "Sorry, Emilily. I'm kinda... stressed..."
"I know."
"You know," Remus commented, "from this angle a sixteen-year-old and a thirty-six-year-old gazing lovingly at each other just looks wrong. I mean, I know Sirius isn't really sixteen, but... can we say `perverted`?"
"Probably. It's not a rude word."
1 week later
/\/\/\
"Yeah... but we'll get him back. We always do..."
"Yeah..." Sirius went pale suddenly. "Moony... did they say we'd be in the Houses we were Sorted into, or the Houses we spent all our time in?"
"The ones we were Sorted into... oh, crap."
"I knew it." Sirius glared down at his plate with the sort of fercity usually reserved for small men of a rodent-like visage. "Snape's my housemaster...."
Well! There's a plot twist ^_^ I like them... they're fun.
Why? Well, I'll tell you. Hagrid has a certain line; `Never a wizard went bad wasn't in Slytherin.` [Book 1] At the time, he thinks Sirius is a dark wizard... so, logically, Sirius must've been in Slytherin. Never said he had to spend any time in Slytherin... according to my plotline he switched houses in fifth year anyway ^_^ But enough of the revealing of the plot... review!