Birthday, or the Lack of a Title

Chapter Three: An Inauspicious Meeting

By Romula

Rating: G

Warning: Slash. Remus/Sirius, Sirius/Remus, whatever.

Author's Notes: Words that are surrounded by asterisks are *stressed*. Paragraphs encased by slashes (//) are flashbacks.

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Sirius climbed the stairs to Gryffindor tower. His feet felt heavy, like his shoes had been filled with lead, and he was developing a nasty headache. Great, he was getting a cold. On his sixteenth birthday. It just figured. Next, he'd probably pass out, fall down the stairs and break his neck. He probably wouldn't even die, he'd just be in a lot of pain and unable to move for months, and Remus wouldn't even visit him in the infirmary - and Sirius wouldn't be able to go out on the full moon - this day was just getting worse and worse!

"Sirius. Sirius!"

And now someone was yelling at him. Like Remus hadn't done enough of that already. Whoever it was -

"Sirius, I said wait a minute!"

Sirius turned around, hands clenched into fists ready to kill - or at least seriously maim - the offender - and met an unexpected and very startled pair of hazel eyes.

"Look," began Remus, "I don't know what's going on, but we really need to talk."

Sirius stood mutely. He was used to always having something to say; being speechless was an alien sensation and he disliked the fact that Remus seemed to easily inspire it in him. Perhaps it was that - the feeling of resentment and frustration - that prompted him to do what he did next. "There's absolutely nothing to talk about," Sirius said in clipped tones. Then he turned and walked down the stairs again, remarkably calm considering that he was heading to the Astronomy Tower with the intent to jump off of it.

Remus didn't follow.

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James stalked through the halls of Hogwarts, wishing he had the Marauder's Map with him (it was hidden securely in the bottom of his trunk with the Invisibility Cloak). For all he was good at sneaking around without being seen by others, his tracking skills were sadly lacking. Remus was good at tracking. James supposed it had something to do with being a werewolf, but whenever he mentioned it, Remus simply smiled enigmatically and deftly changed the subject - which struck James as odd, because usually Remus didn't mind talking about lycanthropy.

Remus! O-oh! Lily was so wrong about Remus and Sirius. She had to be. It didn't bear thinking that she could be right, that would just . . . ruin everything. The Marauders were like brothers, family. Sirius and Remus couldn't possibly be in love, that would be like James falling in love with Peter, and that was just . . . it was . . . it was gross. And wrong. And impossible.

So why was he still worried?

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"I don't know why he can't see it, I mean I know he's always kind of oblivious to anything that doesn't have to do with Quidditch - I don't know how on earth he gets such good grades, since he never pays attention in class and I've never seen him studying - but even if he didn't notice I can't see why his reaction was so violent -"

"He pays attention to you."

It took Lily four whole seconds to stop dead in her tracks; Peter was counting. James and Lily were really so sweet together, and Peter was endlessly amused that they seemed to be oblivious to the fact.

"Yes, well, erm . . . are you trying to change the subject?" Lily could feel her cheeks getting warm and tried to divert attention away from herself.

"No. You're the one who said he didn't pay attention to anything except Quidditch, but he does. He pays a lot of attention to you." Peter grinned. "In fact, I think he pays more attention to you than he does to Quidditch, because just last week Jonathan was complaining that James kept spacing out during practice mmhpnnp --" Peter was going to mention the unfortunate essay that James had been forced to hand in to Professor Binns a fortnight ago, the one that had been covered in little hearts and the words "Lily Potter," but he was prevented from doing so by the hand clamped over his mouth.

Lily held a finger to her lips. "Do you hear that? It sounds like, like . . ."

"Like someone very angry?" Peter supplied.

"Yeah, only, those aren't all words I'm familiar with."

"Er, Wizarding slang. Can't be a teacher, it's too rude." He listened. "Really, really quite indecent. That sort of stuff would make sailors blush."

Lily looked at him. "Right then. Shall we go see who it is?"

"Just what I was thinking." Peter replied, grinning at her. "It's coming from below, I think." They ran to the end of the hallway and started down a spiral staircase. Which was really rather unfortunate, because the person they were going to find happened to be coming up the stairs rather quickly, and like all good stories this one ends in blood and tears.

Peter reached the staircase first, with Lily barely a foot behind, and they were taking the stairs two at a time. It was a steep and narrow staircase, and there was no handrail, which everyone agreed afterward was rather neglectful of the staff. The person coming up the staircase was indeed very angry, and didn't hear the footsteps coming down the stairs. Lily and Peter were making too much noise to hear the person coming up. Any physicist will tell you (in more complex terms) that an object going down will gain speed as it travels, and both Lily and Peter were going down rather quickly by the time they reached the middle of the staircase, so when the person coming up the stairs suddenly appeared in front of Peter, poor Peter was able to neither stop nor move in time to prevent the collision. The two might have recovered and tragedy averted had not Lily been so close to Peter. Peter and the unsuspecting student were grasping at each other's robes, teetering on the edge of a step, and when Lily ran into them, the duo became a trio of yelling, yelping appendages wrapped up in standard issue black school robes. Luckily there were only thirty more steps or so between the collision point and the bottom of the stairwell. With all the stairs to be found in Hogwarts Castle, it could have been much worse.

There were two minutes of complete silence. Then someone tried to move.

"Someone move their bloody wand before I bloody beat their head in!" Lily could be scary sometimes. Everyone tried to untangle their limbs and robes simultaneously, which lead to even more entanglement and several seconds of confusion that would have been really funny a) had anyone been around to watch it and b) were the parties involved not in such great pain.

Someone groaned. "I'm going to have bruises for a month. No, two months! I won't be able to play in the match against Slytherin! What the hell were you thinking!"

Peter and Lily looked at the boy, then at each other, then back at the boy. Then they started yelling at the same time. "What are you -" "I thought -" "Supposed to be -" "Then we were -" "And James -" "But then -" "And Gryffindor is that way -" "He looked ill -" "Nothing there -" "Have to talk to -"

"Sirius, what are you doing here!" They yelled together.

Sirius glared at them. "You are interrupting my death! Or maybe you're trying to murder me! Remus send you after me? Figures. Going to throw me off the Astronomy Tower, were you? But you botched it and decided to throw me down the stairs, eh? What next, the lake? Going to shove me in the kitchen ovens? Now my last words are going to be something daft like aah- oww!" Sirius halted his lamentation to reflect on the accuracy of Peter's aim, even when throwing a book, and books were oddly shaped. He could fly well enough. With some practice he could make a decent Chaser, and O'Donnell would be graduating, leaving his spot wide open -

"What in Merlin's name are you talking about, Sirius?" Lily demanded. "Stop talking rubbish! You're not - we're not - stop talking like you're going to die or I swear to . . . to . . . to something really big and important that I will . . . I'll . . ." Here she became calm and very quiet. "I will inflict such injuries on you that you will wish you were dead. I will steal instruments of torture from the Slytherins if I have to, or Filch. There will be wire and sharp things and very hot iron pokers involved. There are illustrations in some of the library books of what the Muggles did to witches and wizards during the Dark Ages. We'll call it a practical history lesson. Binns will be pleased with your initiative. And you will be very sorry."

Yes. Yes, Lily could be rather scary at times. Peter somehow managed to sidle away from her while still sitting down. Sirius was sitting very still, barely breathing. His brain was working on the T-Rex Principle, which is basically the frantic hope that if you don't move, it won't see you.

This sort of thinking has lead to the demise of many males at the hands of the females of the species. Fortunately for Sirius, Lily had no real desire to hurt him. In fact, she was in quite a lot of pain herself. A visit to the infirmary was definitely in order, and she said as much. Then she marched them through the halls of Hogwarts, walking five paces behind them like a prison guard. So they didn't have a chance to run when they rounded a corner and walked right into James Potter.