Author's Note: heh. I had fun writing the last of this chapter. It was actually intended to be a side little piece but it seemed to actually fit into the story a bit so I stuck it in. Naughty Sirius.
Disclaimer: Not mine! WAHHHHHH!!!!!!
Chapter 4
Mari was just finishing up the last bit of house cleaning that she hadn't asked the house elves to do before she heard the telltale knock on the door signifying that James' friends had arrived.
"James! Honey! Your friends are here!" Mari called up the stairs after having let them in and disposing of the dust rag.
"How are you Mrs. Potter?"
"I'm doing very well, thank you, Remus. And you know you can call me Mari or even Mum like Sirius does if you like. You're family here. You know that," she gave him a warm smile, ruffling his hair as she did so. It didn't matter if the boy was going into his seventh year or his first. The boys would always be her little children. Somethings she'd just never grow out of doing with them, like ruffling their hair.
"Thanks, Mrs. Po-, Mari," Remus corrected himself shyly.
Sirius grinned, poking his nose into the kitchen and inhaling dramatically, "lookin' forward to your cooking, Mum."
"I just bet you are," Mari smiled back. Sirius really was like a second... Wait. No. Third son to her now.
"Just don't tell James that that's the only reason I ever come over," he stage whispered behind one hand as he winked.
"I heard that!" Cole laughed. If the boy was talking about food it had to be Sirius. He didn't even have to look to be able to tell that. But he looked anyway. James had gone on and on about his best friend earlier that morning as well as some last night hoping to get him interested in his friend. It had worked. Cole was very eager to meet this Sirius Black and he was most definitely pleased with what he saw. Sirius was gorgeous in his opinion.
He had needed to stop before continuing on down the stairs for fear of falling the rest of the way down when he saw him. James hadn't been exaggerating like he had first assumed.
"Hey James," Remus smiled, his eyes displaying his silent laughter.
"You know I'm only joking," Sirius grinned sheepishly.
"Of cooouuuuurse," Cole rolled his eyes as he hopped down onto the floor, skipping the last few steps.
"I also come to be treated like the god that I am," Sirius grinned arrogantly and tossed his head to the side, put his hands on his hips as he stuck his chest out. Remus and Cole burst out laughing. "What?" Sirius looked around seeming to be genuinely confused as to why they were laughing at him. But he knew, you could see it in his eyes that he knew. This show was simply to make his friends laugh.
"I'm going, to go... to go get lunch ready now. Yes that's what I'm going to go do," Mari smiled kindly, trying to make her escape.
"But Mum, we've already had lunch," Cole looked at her confused before she had even been able to take two steps.
"Right. Well, I'm just gonna go, uh, well, somewhere else where I won't be suffocated by Sirius' rather large ego," she smiled again, softening the barb as she dashed out.
"I don't blame you!" Remus laughed. "I wish I could get away from it."
"Or at least pop it," Cole added with a laugh. "Come on let's head up to my room. We can play Exploding Snap or something." The three boys ran up to Cole and James' room, leaving a very relieved Mari in their wake.
"Hey James? I thought your room was a lot smaller than this," Sirius asked after walking inside and sprawling out on the floor taking up as much room as possible.
"It was," Cole said absentmindedly as if it weren't a big deal and his room changed sizes everyday.
"Why'd your parents decide to make it bigger?" Remus questioned as he took his own seat on James' bed and made himself comfortable.
Cole flopped down upon his own bed sideways so that he could look over the edge and watch Sirius. "So that we wouldn't be squished," he shrugged.
"See? I told you I was a god. Your parents thought of my comfort," Sirius grinned puffing up like a blow fish.
"Actually, they were thinking about my comfort. Yours was never mentioned," Cole smirked to himself, looking down on the long haired teen.
"Yes, well, of course they wouldn't mention it to you. They wouldn't want you to feel bad because they love me more," Sirius replied loftily waving his hand regally about in the air above him, nearly smacking Cole in the face as he did so.
Cole simply snorted and rolled his eyes as he ducked out of the way. James had been right, Sirius was a little off his rocker, but he still found himself liking him so far. He wondered what he was like when he was finished with the 'god act' and being his normal self.
"You wish, Padfoot," Remus grinned.
"I don't have to wish. I always get what I want," Sirius raised his chin haughtily. "They even have a bed for me. You get to sleep on the floor Moony," Padfoot stuck his tongue out at Remus as he craned his neck beck to see him.
"Actually Moony doesn't have to sleep on the floor," Cole corrected, smiling to himself. He had a feeling he knew where this was leading to.
"HA! YOU have to sleep on the floor, Padfoot!" Remus crowed delightedly, actually clapping his hands together before blushing and calming himself down.
"Actually, neither does he," Cole laughed. Poor confused little canines, he snickered.
"What? Are you gonna sleep on the floor?" Sirius forgot his act and was starting to become confused.
"No," James smiled. "Mum and Dad are gonna conjure up three more beds for the two of you and Lily," he murmured from the doorway where he had been leaning for the past few minutes listening.
Sirius and Remus spun to stare at James, their mouths hanging open slightly in surprise. They turned to look back at Cole to make sure their eyes weren't playing tricks on them.
"Who is that, James?" Remus asked staring fixedly at the figure in the doorway.
"Actually that's James. I'm Cole, but that's my middle name. James is my real name," Cole grinned at the confused looks on both of their faces. Apparently that hadn't cleared anything up.
James walked into the room and flopped down onto his bed beside Remus. "I see you've met Cole, my new 'brother,' I guess you could call him," he grinned having never seen his two friends so speechless in his life, especially not Sirius.
"If you want to be technical, to make a long story short, I am him," Cole inclined his head towards James, he then proceeded to explain what had happened.
Sirius was the first to break the silence. "COOL!" James and Cole both grinned.
"School should be fun this year," both said at the same time as their grins broadened.
"Woah. It's really freaky when you do that at the same time. More so than if you were normal twins. Normal twins are at least different people. You're both the same person... Er, sorta," Sirius propped his head up on his hands watching the two.
"Weird," Remus agreed with Sirius. The twins just grinned.
"Lily should be coming soon. We purposely told her to come later than you two. I didn't want her to confuse Cole with me and end up kissing him," James turned slightly red while Remus, Sirius and Cole laughed.
"It would have been funny though! She would have been so embarrassed when she found out," Sirius grinned evilly. "We should do it anyway."
"No. I wouldn't do that to James. Ever," Cole's voice was flat. There would be no discussion. First of all, he didn't like girls, and second, James would probably never forgive him. He wasn't about to do anything that might possibly get him kicked out of the house.
"Damn. You're too much like James," Sirius pouted rolling over onto his back, cushioning his head on his knapsack.
"I should hope so!" James gave Sirius a dirty look before chucking a pillow at his best friend's head. He grinned when it hit its mark.
Sirius sputtered, sitting up as he tried not to choke in surprise. "Hey! No fair! I wasn't ready!"
"All's fair. You should know that by now, Paddy. You and James never play fair," Remus snickered giving the teen's side a little kick with his outstretched foot.
"Hmmph! Not fai-"
"Have you introduced Cole to Sirius and Remus yet?!" Mari called up the stairs cutting off the rest of Sirius' rant. She blinked as Lily tumbled out of the fireplace and helped herself to her feet and began dusting herself off hastily.
"Yes, Mum!" James yelled back down the stairs.
"Good. Lily's here! Would you like me to send her up?!"
"We'll be right down!" James and Cole said in unison as they raced out of the room.
"I still say it's freaky," muttered Sirius as the twins ran down the stairs. "Hey, Remy? What do you think of him?"
"Of Cole? Well, he's alright. I like him. Why?" Remus looked down at his friend wondering where on earth this conversation could be going.
Sirius looked away, watching something out the window. It Remus knew any better, he'd have said that Padfoot looked nervous. "Well, do you think maybe that, that he could possibly like me?"
"Of cours-"
"No, I don't mean like that. He'll like pretty much anyone James tells him to at this point. But, do you think he'll like me like James likes Lils?" he looked back up at Remus, face completely serious and void of any humor.
Remus shrugged. "I couldn't tell you. James would know that better than I would. I don't happen to know what way he swings, but I suppose if he swung that way, I see no reason why he shouldn't like you. Talk to James about it though. Like I said, James should know that kind of thing about Cole," he smiled reassuringly at his friend. For the way Sirius went on about himself, it was hard to imagine the insecure person that lay in wait just beneath the surface. "Don't worry 'bout it so much."
*~*~*
"Hiya Lils!" James ran across the room and gave Lily a loud smacking kiss on her cheek and smiled. "I'd like you to meet my new brother, Cole."
"Hey," Cole grinned, raising a hand in greeting, his head just peeking around James' shoulder.
Lily's mouth dropped open. "Where did you get him?"
"Found him."
"Found him?" Lily echoed softly, looking thoroughly confused.
"Yup. He was in an alley. Come on, I'll explain upstairs."
The boys each took an end of her trunk and carried it upstairs for her. Lily followed them trying to figure out if this was a joke or not, and if it was how they had managed to pull it off.
"So. How do you like James number two? Otherwise known as Cole," Sirius grinned innocently up at Lily.
"So this really isn't a joke?" Lily's eyes went wide. She had assumed that it was and that Cole was simply Sirius in disguise. She hadn't even thought about how Sirius would have been able to shrink to James' height. She hadn't gotten that far in her rationalizing.
"Nope. No Joke. I really am James number two otherwise known as Cole. I'm James Potter from another dimension. Parents died. I found spell. Ended up here. James found me, took me home. His parents are adopting me. That's the short version. Any questions?" Cole grinned as Lily sat down hard on the floor as if suddenly dizzy which she could have been with how fast he had explained everything.
She shook her head. No questions came to mind, yet. Everything was pretty self-explanatory. She just needed some time to soak it in. By the time dinner rolled around, Lily had asked Cole all the questions she had been able to think of. She knew the story that everyone would be told plus personal information such as why he had felt like switching dimensions in the first place.
She had also been immensely happy to learn that Cole would never try to trick her into thinking that he was actually her James. He might try and trick everyone else including Sirius and Remus, but never her. She hadn't even been able to express just how much that meant to her.
Dinner went by fairly uneventful, that is after James' parents figured out which boy was which. They hadn't exactly been very helpful and had decided to dress the same. They had almost the exact same personality when they wanted to, which made it almost impossible to tell them apart if they didn't want someone to know the difference.
"Hey, James? Can Cole fly?" Sirius asked hopefully after he had wolfed down his second serving of pumpkin pie and complimented Mrs. Potter on another exquisite meal.
"Well, he isn't all that bad actually. I just taught him this morning. It's either natural or he's a quick learner, but he does pretty well," James answered rather proud of himself as a teacher.
"Why don't we see just how good he is, then? We can play a little Quidditch!" Sirius suggested already running to get his broom.
James just rolled his eyes. "Don't worry. We've got brooms for all of you too. Come on, he'll join us out there," James signaled with his arm for the three to follow him outside to the back yard.
"Hey James. You never mentioned Quidditch earlier. What is it?"
"Well, it's the wizarding world's sport. Muggles have a lot of them like soccer and football, but we pretty much just have one major one and that's Quidditch. It's played with two teams on brooms. Each has end has three hoops with one keeper to guard them. Then there are three chasers per team who are basically what you call offense. They try to score in the hoops with the quaffle which is the main large red ball.
"Beaters are what you consider defense. They carry these bats and hit balls called bludgers around at the other team. There are two of them per team and two bludgers overall. The last person on a team is the seeker. There's a forth ball called the golden snitch. It flies around nearly invisible and it's the seeker's job to catch it. The game ends once it's been caught. It's also worth one hundred-fifty points. Each quaffle score is worth ten. Get it?"
"Yeah I think so, but doesn't that mean we don't have enough players?" Cole asked pushing gently off the ground on his broom, this time managing to stay upright on it.
"Yup, so we're gonna fudge it a bit. No snitch, no seeker. No bludgers, no beaters. Just the quaffle and the chasers will double up as the keeper. We'll just play till it gets too dark or we feel like quitting. The pitch I've got is a bit smaller than a real one would be, but it still works for it."
"Alright, sounds good," Cole smiled. "So what are the teams?"
"I'm on James' team. Always am. And since we're on the team at school and play more, why don't the three of you be the other team? We don't need a third."
"You might regret saying that," Cole smiled mischievously. As long as Lily and Remus could fly well enough along with catch and throw, then he'd say the teams were pretty even.
"You're on," Sirius smirked kicking up to join the others already in the air.
Cole surprised everyone, except for maybe James, by actually being quite adept at the position of Chaser. He wasn't so great at keeper, but he could manage well enough. Remus turned out to be the best keeper on their team and was frequently used as such.
When it was apparent that the teams were rather equal James began using dirty tactics to give his team the edge in the even score.
"James! You can't do that! I'm positive that's gotta be a foul or something!" Cole yelled across the field at his twin as James waylaid his girlfriend while she was in possession of the quaffle. He easily passed the red ball to Sirius as he kissed her senseless.
Lily giggled, not seeming to mind until she finally realized what had happened. "James Cole Potter! How could you?!" She huffed indignantly and chased after Sirius. "You aren't getting away from me doggy boy!" she screeched as she caught hold of the tail of the boy's broom.
Sirius lurched forward suddenly dropping the quaffle which was quickly intercepted by Cole. "Serves you right, Paddy. Cheating isn't very nice. Red head's are known for their tempers. James should have known that," Cole laughed gleefully, easily slipping by James and scoring ten points for his team.
"Ugh, nice goin' James!" Sirius muttered bitterly as he glared over his shoulder at a triumphant Miss Evans.
"Maybe we should call it quits for the night," James laughed, setting down. "I think we're only gonna get worse and Mum would kill me if we accidentally got someone hurt, especially Lily. You know how she gets sometimes. We're not supposed to rough house with girls. They're delicate," James mimicked his mother's voice, doing a terrible impression as he did so.
"That sounds nothing like me, James. Kindly remember that. I'm hurt," Mari sniffed from the open doorway just behind her son. She laughed when he jumped straight into the air in shock and spun around to face her.
"Uh-heh, Mum. Hi, I, uh, didn't see you there. Heh, heh. Love you?" He smiled innocently as best he could, but the guilt was still clearly visible.
"Uh-huh, sure you do. Choose better timing, dear," she laughed kissing the top of his head as he ran by her up to his room shortly followed by the other four.
"Nice goin' Prongs," Sirius laughed falling on top of his best friend's bed. "Good thing yer mum is pretty cool."
"You're telling me!" James breathed a sigh of relief, took in a deep breath and shoved Sirius off the edge of the bed. "Mine. Ask Cole if you can use his." James ducked his head slightly using his bangs to block the sidelong glance he gave to Cole from Sirius' watchful eyes. James smirked, watching the pale rose color creep up his twin's neck.
Sirius looked at Cole expectantly, grinning when he say the boy move over slightly. That was as much of an invitation as he needed. He sprawled out on his back, using Cole's thigh as a pillow.
Hazel eyes went wide in shock, the owner temporarily incapable of doing anything other than stare down at Sirius in what looked like abject terror.
"Don't worry Cole. He's like that with all the cute guys. Don't take it personally. He's just touchy-feely. You'll get used to it eventually," Remus chuckled settling in on the plush burgundy rug with a large body pillow to curl up with.
Cole finally tore his eyes away from the beauty in his lap to look over at James. James just grinned impishly, giving him an 'oops, I forgot to mention he did that' sort of look.
Sirius turned over onto his side, nuzzling his cheek against the outside of Cole's thigh very much reminiscent of how a dog might when it wanted attention or was simply trying to get more comfortable. He sighed happily once he was satisfied with his position and closed his eyes, resting one hand on Cole's knee.
"James!" Cole mouthed to his twin beginning to slightly panic. He received a simple reassuring smile in return. Cole made a small whimpering sound in the back of his throat as he finally gave up, resting his hand on Sirius' shoulder because there was no other comfortable place to set it.
James wondered why Cole was having such a hard time dealing with Sirius when he, himself was also interested in guys. He watched the pair for a minute, trying to come up with an answer. Perhaps it was because Cole had little experience when it came to crushes and that sort of thing. Or perhaps he just wasn't a very touchy-feely kind of person. Sirius would make him get over it if that were the case. Sirius could make a statue cry if he whined long enough. James couldn't remember ever meeting a more persuasive person than Padfoot.
TBC...