Happy mothers day to all mothers.
CW: Homophobia and child abuse
Sirius's mother had immediately regrown his hair back to normal and she was now complaining about other things.
"All these muggles… what are they doing in our area?"
"May as well just kill them all, don't you think, Walburga? Like I killed Pettigrew."
I clutched Peter's arm to make sure he didn't do anything impulsive to feel that his arm was shaking, out of anger or fear, I wasn't sure.
"But the problem is we have to go out of our way to hide our magic from them," said Walburga as they stopped in an empty carpark. I stopped too late and bumped into Sirius, who just reached back and grabbed the cloak around my hand.
He's taking my hand! I thought. He likes me!
But my hopes were crushed when I saw that Sirius had also taken Regulus's hand and they were getting ready to side-on apparate, so I quickly gripped onto Peter's arm with my other hand, who then linked arms with James, just in time for when Walburga apparated, and we were soon inside the very same room that Bellatrix had tortured Sirius in, back in the Christmas break of 1971.
"Sirius, Regulus, your suits for the wedding are in your bedrooms," said Walburga. "Go try them on to make sure they fit."
"Yes, Mother," said Regulus, and both brothers walked upstairs, Regulus in front so James, Peter, and I could follow Sirius.
"It's that Malfoy guy she's marrying, isn't it?" Sirius asked his brother.
"Obviously," Regulus replied coldly. They got to the top of the stairs and split ways. My friends and I followed Sirius into his way-too-fancy bedroom. On the bed sat a fancy tuxedo with a green tie.
"A green tie," Sirius grumbled, "She's got to do that to me..."
We turned around while he tried it on, then heard him complaining about the green tie when he was done.
"Oh well, even if it is a green tie, I still look great," said Sirius, grinning at himself in the mirror.
He didn't look great, he looked hot. I'd always thought of him as good-looking or beautiful, but now he was straight up so smoking hot that I could have kissed him right there and then.
Luckily, I was under an invisibility cloak, so Sirius couldn't see my gobsmacked face, but James and Peter could, I realised too late. Thankfully, Peter didn't notice. But James did. He just put his hand under my chin to lift my jaw back to my mouth, then smiled at me.
Does he know? I thought. He seemed to be OK with it if he did. Maybe it would be nice to have a friend who knew… To know that I wasn't the only person in the world who knew who I liked.
"Stay here, I need to show this to my mother," Sirius said quietly, and he walked out of his room in the suit.
"Remus, do you like Sirius?" James whispered.
"What!?" said Peter, looking over at us, his eyes wide. "But Sirius is a boy!"
"We need to be quiet, guys," I whispered, feeling my face heat. Why did James have to say that in front of Peter? "Sirius's parents might hear."
James just gave me a this-conversation-is-so-not-over look, and Peter fiddled with his hands awkwardly.
"How long have you liked him for?"
"Properly since second year," I whispered. It was the middle of the night and James had dragged me to the bathroom so he could talk to me about Sirius. I told him it was too risky, but he'd just insisted that it was important.
"Oh my gosh, this is so perfect… we could go on double dates, you and him and Lily and I! And Peter, he can come to them too with his future lover…"
"James, it's not happening because there's no way I could go out with Sirius," I said. "I mean… look at him, then look at me! He's way out of my league!"
"I wouldn't be so sure of that…" said James, "Just ask him out to Madam Puddifoot's when we go back to school."
"James, we can't go out together in public for a date," I said.
"Why should it matter?" said James, crossing his arms. "Lily and I could go out and no one would blink an eye, but you and Sirius… it's not fair."
I just shrugged.
"Don't shrug, Remus, it's really not fair. Why does the world have to be so… so shit?"
"I don't know," I said. "Look, we should go back to Sirius's room. Peter's stuck there without the cloak."
"Alright…" said James. He, like me, seemed to feel bad about leaving with the invisibility cloak without telling Peter.
I opened the door and gasped silently when I saw a figure standing there.
"I know there's someone there," said Regulus's voice. "I heard you talking."
I turned to James and shook my head before he could say anything.
"Sirius, you've snuck Potter into our house, haven't you? I know about the invisibility cloak."
"How does he…" James started, but I kicked his shin before he could continue.
"Ha! You did bring him!" said Regulus. "Should I tell mother? I think I will…"
"Regulus, wait!" James hissed. "It's me, James Potter, and I'll… I'll pay you if you don't tell your parents. Twenty galleons! All yours if you stay quiet!"
"Hmmm… I'll have a think about it," said Regulus.
And James and I left it at that.
It was a shame we weren't allowed to use magic over the summer, because if we were, the wedding pranks would have been ten million times better. Instead, we had to resort to what we'd managed to get from Zonko's.
Our first instalment was just before everyone came in, and James, Peter, and I snuck to the seats and put a whoopee cushion that would hex the person who sat on it the make them do the chicken dance, a muggle dance, on the seat that Walburga was meant to be sitting. All the seats had normal cushions on them, so we just had to take the cushion out of the cover and put the inflated whoopee cushion in its place.
James, Peter, and I stood at the back of the chairs, under the invisibility cloak, as everyone started to walk in and take their seats. Sirius came in soon with his parents and brother. We watched them as they walked to their seats, as Sirius and Regulus sat down, and then Orion and Walburga, and when Sirius's mother sat on her chair, there was a loud farting noise and all heads turned in her direction.
She turned red with embarrassment, but it wasn't over yet: the chicken dance music soon started playing and she involuntarily stood up and started dancing to it. A few people let out a small laugh, causing her to give them a sharp look, which looked stupid while she was in the midst of dancing.
When she was back to normal, she immediately turned to Sirius and slapped him across the face. I felt James tense next to me.
"What did you do?" she snapped. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME, SIRIUS!?"
"Nothing," said Sirius. "Honestly, mum, sit down, is this your wedding or Narcissa's?"
Fuming, Walburga sat down because as much as she didn't like it, Sirius did have a point. But when she sat down, it caused the whoopee cushion to go off again. I watched Sirius, who was struggling to keep a straight face. After this round, she picked up the chair and threw it across the aisle, screaming in the process. She then took an empty chair from behind her and sat down on that, whispering something to Sirius.
Soon, the wedding began, and Bellatrix came out as the maid of honour. No Andromeda, surprise, surprise.
When the bride music began and Narcissa came out in her wedding dress and veil, James, Peter, and I walked up behind her, and keeping his foot under the invisibility cloak, James stepped on the veil.
Narcissa let out a cry as she tried to continue walking and only stopped when the veil was ripped from her head, causing her hair to mess up.
"What the hell?!" Narcissa cried. Lucius rushed to the veil and picked it up, re-attaching it to her hair.
"It's alright, love," said Lucius. "Let's try this again."
He walked back down to where he'd been standing with the celebrant, and Narcissa began to walk down the aisle once again, and we began to grab colour balls from Zonko's out of our pockets.
When no one was looking, I stuck my hand out of the cloak and threw the first ball at Narcissa. Purple paint was splattered over the entire right side of her dress, causing her to scream.
"WHO'S TRYING TO RUIN OUR WEDDING?!" she shrieked. "THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE!"
"Sirius…?" said Walburga, putting her hand on her wand.
"I'm not doing anything!" said Sirius. "I've been sitting here the whole time!"
"Stop ruining my wedding!" Narcissa cried at no one in particular. She shook her head and continued to walk down the aisle as James threw the second ball. This time yellow paint was splattered across the bottom of the dress.
"WHOEVER'S DOING THIS, STOP IT NOW!" Lucius boomed, pointing his wand around threateningly. I nodded to Peter, who threw the final colour ball, and blue paint covered almost every clear spot on Narcissa's dress.
Tears streaming down her face, she stumbled the rest of the way down the aisle and instructed the celebrant to just get on with it. He did, and when they began saying their vows, we set an attack on Lucius.
James threw a different kind of ball at him, which made his voice go all high-pitched. Narcissa's face immediately went red with anger and she looked around at everyone, then finally at Bellatrix, who nodded and pulled out her wand.
"Homenum Revelio!" she shouted, and the invisibility cloak flew right off us. "There!"
Walburga spun around angrily and glared at us, then turned to Sirius, and, not taking her eyes off him, spoke to Bellatrix.
"Get the intruders. I'll take care of Sirius."
"We gotta run!" Peter cried.
"No," I said, looking at Sirius. "No, she's going to kill him…"
"And this bloody Death Eater is going to kill us, so we need to get out of here," said Peter, grabbing James and my arms and started dragging us out of the wedding area as Bellatrix moved swiftly towards us.
But James and I were on the same page, we both refused to leave without Sirius, who was now trying to slip away from his mother's physical grasp.
It seemed to happen in slow motion: Sirius shouting at us to go inside to the fireplace and take the floo network, James and I not stopping our run towards him, Peter yelling at us to come back. Time only sped back to normal when Bellatrix hit me with the cruciatus curse.