Chapter 28: Boy Stuff
As the term progressed Lexie noticed that the four boys who she had been so close with were starting to distance themselves from her. More and more she would catch them in a huddle in the common room whispering and whenever she approached, they would get quiet and pretend to work on homework. How did she know they were pretending?
Maybe it had something to do with the time she caught James reading his Defense textbook upside down. Or perhaps it was the time when Peter had quickly shoved a chocolate frog into his mouth when Lexie approached asking what they were up to.
They were acting strange, and it was driving Lexie crazy. More so than the previous year when they had been acting out of character due to a misunderstanding over a prank. A prank they still had not disclosed to her but was apparently still top secret.
To make matters worse Lexie was finding her Divination class utterly useless, she was no closer to understanding her dreams even though they seemed to be increasing in frequency. She was becoming more exhausted as the term past and the more secretive the boys became, the more irritated she got.
"Can you all just tell me what I did to make you mad at me?" She finally groused on evening after they had become silent yet again on her approach.
She didn't miss the secret glance they all shared or the fake smile that they quickly plastered on their faces.
"Nothing Lex, we're just busy you know? Plus, you seemed kind of urm prickly lately, so we figured we'd just leave you be you know," Sirius said diplomatically.
"I'm only prickly because you are all clearly hiding something, come on I thought I was your friend?" she replied a little hurt.
"You are!" claimed James, "But I mean, you are a girl so you wouldn't really understand."
Lexie gaped, never had her gender played a role in her friendships and she was left speechless as to this being the reason she was suddenly left out of their circle.
"Yeah, girls wouldn't get it," jumped in Peter.
"Yeah, it's just boy stuff," added in Sirius.
Lexie passed over the faces of each of her friends, Remus was noticeably quiet and had moved his gaze down to his textbooks, "Is that what you think too Remie? I'm too much of a girl to be part of whatever this is?"
Remus looked up with a pained expression and Lexie noticed for the first time he looked more tired than usual, "Well, I mean…" he stumbled, "kind of…" Remus trailed off and before he even had a chance to add to his train of thought he saw something shutter in Lexie's expression.
Her usually bright eyes became guarded, and she looked away from him hurt. "Well I guess I should be getting on then; I'll leave you to your boy stuff which I'm apparently too much of a girl to understand," she hissed out as if it was a curse word.
Before they could stop her, she mumbled "stupid gits" before fleeing up the girl's dormitory staircase so they wouldn't see her eyes glossing over with tears.
"Bollocks," sighed Sirius starting to pack up his schoolwork, "Well that went splendid. Nice excuse James, now she hates us."
"Well, I did hear any of you coming up with anything, and if it was so stupid why did you agree?" James snapped back.
"Stop, just- can we not fight," Remus sighed sadly, "This is all my fault."
Sirius shook his head, "No, it's all of us. But we agreed it's too dangerous, look I hate Lex is upset but we can't risk it."
Remus shot a dark look towards Sirius, "That's what I keep saying, you all shouldn't even be risking it. It's too dangerous."
"Look, maybe we should take this conversation somewhere else," whispered James eyeing some fifth years who were working nearby.
All four boys nodded and made their way up to their dormitory where they all collapsed on their individual beds.
"We've all agreed we can't tell Lexie, but what are we supposed to tell her? She's not stupid, it's bad enough she's already noticed something is off," continued Peter.
"Well, we just have to come up with something other than, 'Oh yeah you know your good friend Remus, well he turns into a bloodthirsty monster once a month and his idiot friends have decided to become animagi' even though I should it's horribly dangerous and could us all expelled," mocked Remus before continuing, "Oh and did I mention illegal and completely irresponsible already?"
"You're being dramatic," said James, "You aren't a bloodthirsty monster for one, and two, well okay I'll admit it might be a bit difficult to pull off and we need to be careful, but come on even you said it was a clever idea."
"Yeah, clever as in I never would have thought of it myself, not clever like you should actually try it," retorted Remus.
"Look, we obviously can't tell her that," said Sirius, "and we all agreed as dangerous as it is for us, none of us want to risk Lexie, she loves Hogwarts and it's not like she's has the option of going home if she gets expelled. Plus, we all agreed, she's way too close to Dumbledore, if he finds out we're all screwed."
They all went quiet as they contemplated their current predicament, this was not a new discussion as it had been debated for weeks and they hadn't come any closer to figuring out just what to say to Lexie without obliterating their friendship.
James sighed after several minutes, "Well I'm officially out of ideas, no matter what we say she's either not going to like it, know we are lying, or hate us."
Sirius pulled at his hair, "This is hopeless, James is right, no matter what we say she either won't believe it or it's going to make her mad. And I don't want to be on the other end of her wand, you saw what she did to that Slytherin who tripped her last week, he was in the Hospital Wing for two days."
"What if we tell her we were talking about what to do about liking her more than a friend?" piped in Peter.
Sirius scowled, "How is that supposed to help us? That's the worst idea I've ever heard."
James looked pensive, "I mean maybe not – I mean we did say it was about boy stuff, right? What's more fitting than a crush on a girl?"
"Oh yeah, and how does that explain all the secrecy and avoiding her? If we actually liked her… like that, don't you think we would have wanted her around more not less?" retorted Sirius.
"Not necessarily," said Remus with a thoughtful look, "I mean we all know James is obsessed with Lily and all he does is insult her and drive her away."
"What!" squealed James, "I am not, and I do not! Plus, it's not my fault she's such a bossy know it all in class and hangs out with Snape."
Sirius laughed, "Yeah, you keep telling yourself that mate. We all saw you doodling 'Mrs. Lily Potter' in your History of Magic book surrounded by hearts."
James looked affronted even though his cheeks and ears were slowly turning more and more red.
"Okay so James' affections are off limits, Peter and I are way too shy to ever admit we like a girl let alone to her face, so that leaves you Sirius. You and Lexie always had a secret bond, remember how many times we used to find you both asleep in the common room snuggled up together? It's not outside the realm of possibility that you would have developed a crush," reasoned Remus.
Now it was Sirius' turn to blush, "I was not 'snuggled up' with her we were just sharing the couch and plus I don't see how this is going to fix anything. And we haven't done that in months. How is this going to undo whatever the hell mess we all created down in the common room?"
"Because boys pull girls hair when they like them," answered Peter, "so just explain that you have a crush and to get her attention you were intentionally being mean to her."
"That makes absolutely no sense," retorted Sirius, "if I liked Lex like that I would be nice to her and not treat her like trash which is what we basically did when we told her to mind her own business."
"Yeah, just tell her you like her more than a friend and had shared it with us and we were all trying to figure out what to do about it so it wouldn't ruin our friendship," piped in James.
"Yeah, except one major problem with this brilliant plan," retorted Sirius.
"What's the problem?" asked James
"Oh, I don't know, that I don't like her like that! What am I supposed to do if she likes me back? Then what? How does this help us at all?"
"Wait you don't?" Peter said with a puzzled expression.
"No! Why would you even think that?"
"Uhm because of all the evidence we've already presented?" Peter asked
"Ugh you are all the worst," grumbled Sirius.
"Wait so are you saying you do like her like her?" James asked with a grin.
"Stop putting words in my mouth! No! I just – I mean she's just really cool yeah I admit. And funny. And really nice most of the time. And I mean ever since she got back from summer break her hair is even kind of shiny and pretty now…" Sirius finished thoughtfully his cheeks flaming.
The other three boys were grinning at his rambling.
"Oh, I hate you all," Sirius moaned burying his overheated face into his pillow.
"Yeah, I don't know about this anymore James, I mean given this recent development that Sirius does like Lexie I'm not sure if him admitting his feelings is actually going to help us. If she likes him back like that it will just make our problem worse if they start dating since she'll be around all the time."
"Dating!" exclaimed Sirius lifting his head from his pillow looking horrified, "I don't want to date her, who said anything about dating? I just said she's kind of pretty now."
James sighed ignoring Sirius' outburst, "You have a point Remus which brings us back to square one. What do we tell Lexie about why we've been avoiding her?"
"Oh no, you aren't changing the topic this quickly," blurted Sirius, "you are all sworn to secrecy now, if any of you say even a word to Lexie about me liking her, I'll fill your knicker drawers with itching powder and hex you into next year."
James waved off Sirius' threat, "Yeah, yeah, we aren't idiots of course we won't say anything. But how do we keep Remus' furry little problem and project animagi a secret from Lexie?"
"Furry little problem! That's it, James!" Remus said, "We just tell her we've all been having furry little problems and felt too embarrassed to share it with her. I mean weren't you just asking me about the hair you've started growing, uhm, down there? And, Sirius and Peter didn't you also say you've started seeing hair grow places you'd rather not have Lexie know about too?"
Sirius' face got even redder at the thought of saying anything to Lexie about all the places he was starting to sprout hair let alone his latest issue that required him to cover his lap with a pillow some mornings after a particularly vivid dream. Sirius knew he wasn't alone either considering the sounds he had heard from his other dormmates and the number of sheets they seemed to suddenly be going through.
Too mortified to bring it up he didn't have to when Peter started going into detail about his new discoveries while James and Remus silently nodded along in agreement sharing their own experiences with not just their sheets but also what they had discovered by themselves in the shower.
"This is absolutely mortifying Remus, we can't tell her that – any of that," Sirius said, "I don't even like hearing about it!"
"Even more mortifying than Lexie finding out that we decided to pursue illegal activities and purposefully left her out?" replied Remus. "She'll hate us forever."
"Ugh, fine but you get to be the one to tell her because this is not a conversation, I want any part of!"
"No way! If I'm going to be the one to tell her all about, uh, our recent discoveries, then you all have to at least be there in case I need backup."
And that was how they all ended up in an empty classroom after they had cornered and dragged an irritated Lexie inside to explain themselves.
"…. So, you see Lexie, we were just too embarrassed to tell you about our uh, furry problems, and well you know, the whole um, wet dream situation. We felt a girl wouldn't relate to," finished Remus after a lengthy, and honestly over-detailed, explanation of the male anatomy and personal experiences with puberty.
Lexie hadn't spoken during Remus' entire explanation and other than her eyes getting wider and wider as he rambled on, she was as still as one of the Hogwart's statues. Well, except for the noticeable flinch that almost sent her out of her chair onto the ground after Remus has said the words "errection" and "ejaculate" in the same sentence.
After several seconds of silence, James opened his mouth and that seemed to be enough to wake Lexie up from her paralysis since she immediately held both her hands up shouting, "For the love of Merlin, James, please keep your mouth shut while I try to determine if I can scougify my own brain – ugh," she gagged a little and another uncontrollable shudder took over her whole body.
After a few more seconds of silence while Lexie tried to compose her very disturbed thoughts, she finally found her voice again, "Can we just swear to never ever, and I mean never ever ever in a trillion centuries, ever mention this again. I promise I'll leave you alone with your… furry problems," she paused again looking disgusted at her own words, "but you need to swear on your lives to never speak of this moment again. Ever."
The boys all nodded, and each placed a hand palm down in a stack as a gesture of good will and gestured for Lexie to place hers on top. Lexie took one look at their pile of hands, shuddered again after recalling just where those hands had been in the recent weeks, and awkwardly gave a thumbs up instead while jumping up grabbing her bookbag.
"I'm going to go to the library to work on my Potions essay and when I get back to the common room and if I no longer feel like I might vomit we can go find something to blow up ok?"
They all nodded again awkwardly removing their hands from the pile and shoving them into their pockets.
"Right… right, okay then," Lexie trailed off before sending a brief wave over her shoulder while not meeting any of their eyes.
After she had left James grinned, "Well done Remus, that went better than expected."
Remus grimaced, "I don't know if I'm more embarrassed for us or for her. That is officially the worst thing I've been through and that's saying something seeing as I transform once a month into a wolf."
"Mortifying," said Sirius, "I can't believe you told her about that! I thought you were just going to mention the hair not all of that – ugh I didn't even want to know any of that."
"Well, I had to make it believable, didn't I? You think I wanted to tell her about all of that, I feel like I just gave her the sex talk."
"Well, you practically did mate," said James, "Where did you even learn all that anyways? It was very urm, detailed."
"Ugh, I got nervous okay! My mouth just wouldn't stop even though my brain was telling me to. And I may have picked up a book or two about it, I was curious okay."
"Ah, our little bookworm," teased James, "So, what else did you figure out? Did it talk about girls too? Do they have 'furry problems' too? The non-werewolf kind I mean."
Remus blushed bright red, "I'm not saying anything else. If you want to find out the details, you go read about it. I'm not your sex ed professor!"
"Hm shame on that since you had no problem being Lexie's" said James good naturedly.
Remus glared at James.
"So… are we doing this then?" asked Peter wanting to move on to another topic, "The animagi thing?"
"Hell yeah we are!" replied James, "Project animagi is a go!"
"It better be a go after all that," grumbled Sirius as the four trailed out of the classroom.
It was no shock to anyone of them that Lexie ultimately decided not to join them in the common room that evening. Luckily by the next day she had reverted back to her old self, well except for her newfound willingness to leave them be anytime there was even just a hint they were discussing about "boy stuff."