Author's Note: Harry Potter and all the rest is to J.K. Rowling.
This having turned out longer than I expected, I think it's going to take another chapter or two to wrap things up. Yay, miscalculations!
Chapter Seven
Sirius Black woke up with mixed feelings of excitement and apprehension, the sum of it making his stomach feel heavy and fluttery at the same time. It made the time he ate Edith Blewett's bloody chocolates seem like a happy romp in the school grounds, but there you have it. All in all, he'd rather have one hopping mad Remus Lupin over Edith Blewett any day.
Sirius turned to his side, sitting halfway up, when he heard footsteps coming close to his bed. There was a sharp click that was the lock of a trunk getting opened, followed by the creaking of hinges.
Now, for the preservation of the sanity of the Hogwarts population in general and the Gryffindors in particular, Sirius Black and James Potter had been made to sleep as far away from each other as possible, with Peter and Remus in between. It didn't help stop nightly mischief-making but Sirius couldn't grudge other people their false sense of security.
What other people didn't know about Sirius Black, however, was that he was a ridiculously light sleeper. The scratching of a single mouse in the next room would be enough to wake him up in the middle of the night. In fact, Sirius hated sleeping in the first place. It took a lot of time, and his time—given over to various experiments and interesting matters—was too precious to waste on lying down doing nothing. This already made sleeping pretty much on par with keeping Filch happy, but Sirius had other things to contend with.
It was Peter's snoring. During regular periods, nights in the sixth year boys' dorm was a pretty quiet affair, punctuated only by James or Sirius sharing ideas on how to best write a hex on food or other appealing articles (Snape's clothes being a favourite for a while). But come a particularly stressful week requiring mental callisthenics of a higher kind, Peter's air pipes just go bonkers, resulting to snores and chortling sounds to rival a wounded troll packed tight in a cave.
Which all led to the conclusion that, as far as neighbours went, Sirius' best bet was Remus Lupin. And Remus only agreed to sleep on the bed next to Sirius' after extracting a written promise from everyone not to do anything daft to him when he's sleeping.
This of course meant that the person opening his trunk this early in the morning could be no other than Remus Lupin, and Remus Lupin being awake before Sirius himself is out of bed happens only once in a blue moon, all puns naturally intended.
Unable to help himself, Sirius pulled back the hangings from his bed and peered out. "Moony?"
Remus jumped a bit. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Surprise people like that. Would it have hurt you to make yawning noises before popping your head out of there?" said Remus, leaning down to peer into his own trunk with a frown. "Have you seen any pair of my trousers at all?"
"It wasn't a full moon yesterday," Sirius pointed out.
"I noticed."
"Why are you up now?" Sirius gestured towards the windows, which allowed them a portioned view of the pre-dawn darkness outside. "You don't need to catch up on anything, as far as I can tell."
Remus seemed to become very interested in looking at the bottom of his trunk. "I couldn't sleep very well."
"That's new."
"Sod off, Sirius. Have you seen any of my trousers?"
Sirius smiled, sitting up slowly. It was too dark to know for sure, but it seemed like Remus was blushing slightly. "So you're not angry at me?"
"Why should I?" Remus shrugged. "You always seem to think I'd be angry at you. It's not like it bothered you before."
"Even though I turned your trousers yellow?"
"What?!"
Sirius grinned somewhat sheepishly, rooting around his bed and producing one pair of Remus' trousers, which were indeed undeniably yellow. The kind usually seen on canaries.
"Sirius Orion Black!" said Remus, straightening up.
"I spilled some potion on them last night, is all. Just trying to take the stains out, I swear!"
"Then why are you smiling?"
"It's cute," said Sirius, holding the trousers at arm's length. "Yellow twill would be fabulous on you, Moonykins."
"Who wears yellow twill in this day and age, Sirius?" Remus sighed, moving closer to poke at his trousers gingerly with his wand.
"I don't know," said Sirius, innocently. "Professor Dumbledore?"
"I don't want to hear that old theory again." Remus threw his hands up. "And for the record, I don't give an owl's hoot if Dumbledore's a nancy-boy, okay? It's none of our business, anyway."
"If Dumbledore's gay, why can't we be?" said Sirius.
There was a loud pop and the tip of Remus' wand suddenly erupted with a confetti of canary feathers. Sirius sneezed.
"Oy, what's that for?"
"Stop saying stupid things." Remus snatched his trousers from Sirius and started to move back to his trunk. "The color's the only thing changed with it, right?"
"So are you angry?"
Remus sighed, not bothering to turn to look at Sirius. "No, I'm not. Satisfied?"
Sirius braved the cold floors on his bare feet just so he could move as soundlessly as possible, considering the fact that the person he was talking to was a werewolf and probably had senses to rival Mrs. Norris'.
"So it's okay if I do it again?"
"Do what?" said Remus, and Sirius was turning the other boy around, lifting Remus' chin up although there really wasn't much of a difference between their heights for it to make much of a difference.
Sirius leaned down. It was wonderful looking at Remus' face like that, the splashes of pink on the other boy's pale cheeks and the slight fluttering of brown eyelashes as Remus tried to keep the game face up.
"Don't push your luck, Sirius," said Remus. His voice was low, with a suggestion of hoarseness that was like the auditory equivalent of the chocolate drops they sell at Honeydukes with a splash of firewhisky in them.
"Hm."
"James and Peter are looking at us."
Sirius tore his eyes away from Remus' face and towards the direction of the other Marauders' beds, both of which still had the hangings drawn closed.
"Joking." Remus smiled. "Want to take a bath? We could go to the prefects' bathroom."
"Do you realize what you just asked me, Moony?"
"Oh, I'm pretty much armed against anything," said Remus, tapping his wand against his cheek.
"You're talking to another wizard, mate."
"But Padfoot, old friend, you are talking to an armed prefect."
"No fun, Moony."
*
"Hey, Moony."
Remus sighed softly. "Yes?"
Sirius resisted the urge to pull the other boy around to face him, satisfying himself with applying more strawberry-scented shampoo onto Remus' hair. Remus loved having other people wash his hair. And because Peter seemed to be living in eternal dread of anyone seeing his naked body (even with swimming shorts on) and James too busy to take leisurely baths (and wash hair other than his own), the task usually fell to Sirius, who didn't mind at all. Sometimes he missed taking long baths in the pools back at No. 12 Grimmauld Place, although that was probably the only thing he ever regretted leaving in that other life.
For their shared baths, Remus favoured a pair of green swimming shorts with owl-patterns and Sirius didn't usually bother. Right now, though, he took time to put on plain black shorts before stepping into the pool-sized bath. Remus noticed, of course, but didn't say anything. If the mermaid in the painting was disappointed, neither boy cared.
Sirius massaged Remus' scalp lightly with his fingertips, smiling when he heard a sound suspiciously like a purr coming from the other boy.
"Don't fall asleep."
"I wasn't," said Remus.
"You know, I've been thinking," Sirius began.
"Why do I have the feeling that's the opening lines to another one of your amazing schemes?"
"How well you know me, Remus. It must be love."
Remus' hand swept in a backwards arc, splashing Sirius with peppermint scented bath water. "Keep to your work, Mr. Black."
"So, about James' date... You're fine with my plan?"
Remus turned around, his eyes widening slightly in panic. "James' date? You're not planning on crashing in on them, are you?"
"You're choosing him over me, Moony? Even after the Pink Bunny incident?" Sirius blinked at Remus, trying not to let the edges of his lips curl into a familiar smirk.
"I'm not choosing anyone over anyone," said Remus. "I just think that whatever you're going to tell me is a bad idea, that's all."
"You haven't heard it yet."
"I don't need to."
Sirius sighed, then shifted his hands from Remus' hair to his shoulders to push him around so that they now faced each other. "Come on, Remus. You know those chocolates were originally intended for you, right?"
"Well, yes. But actually—" Remus stopped, his lips thinning into a line. It was probably the warm water, but Sirius thought that the other boy was blushing again.
"Actually what?"
"Nothing."
"You like keeping things to yourself, don't you?" said Sirius, making a face. His hands left Remus' shoulders so he could cross his arms over his chest.
"So would you if you've been turning into a werewolf since you were a kid," Remus pointed out. He looked put out, almost tired. "Sirius—"
"Hey, we're your friends, okay? Me and James and Peter. It's not like I haven't seen the worst of you, Moony. I mean, I wake you up every morning!" Sirius exhaled loudly.
"All right, all right! I was just worried about you, okay?" Remus said, waving his hands a bit and smiling. "Now get back to the point, you silly git. What about James?"
"Worried about me? Nice way of showing it, love."
"Can we not get side-tracked?"
Sirius laughed. "All right. But only because it's you."
*
James Potter stood waiting by the doors, looking over at his reflection on the chest plate of the suit of armor next to him and alternately trying to flatten and mess up his hair. Between all this fidgeting about, he was also sneaking glances at the main stairs of the hallway, frowning a bit and trying not to let other people see just how nervous he was.
James Potter was a Quidditch hero. He's never lost a game before. Not even Bones, who was as hard on the team as McGonagall was on Gryffindors, could find fault with him when he's in his element.
James Potter wasn't so bad with the academics, as well. In fact, he was better than good. He was training to be an Auror, just like he wanted to and no one can deny that he had the promises of being one of the best warlocks out there since Dumbledore himself.
All of this added up to the fact that James Potter was a near perfect guy (well, a few extra inches on his height would have been fine, but then again, he did play Seeker for Quidditch). Near perfect, and he couldn't see why being on a date with Lily Evans would make him feel as jittery as he did.
Not even the large mug of hot chocolate he'd drunk for breakfast had been able to calm his feelings. Sirius might even have spiked the drink with firewhisky, considering how it tasted like. And on a normal day James would never have drank or eaten anything without first making sure what was in it. Firewhisky might be some help now though, except that Lily would probably never give him the time of day again if he shows up drunk for their date.
"Potter."
James nearly jumped when he heard the familiar voice behind him. "Evans! Yes, just in time. Filch was starting to eye me suspiciously, you know."
"Well, it's not like there's much love lost between you two," said Lily, smiling slightly. "Let's go then, before he serves you detention."
"Aw, don't you have the prefectly powers to turn him around?" said James.
"Only with the proper backing. What's wrong, James?"
James stopped fidgeting, taking his hands from behind his back and handing Lily a small box of chocolates. "Well, you know, it's just proper to give your date something, right?"
"Who wrote your lines, Potter?" said Lily, gently. Her eyes widened in surprise when she got a look at the box. "That's from a Muggle store!"
"Yeah, I, er—overheard you tell Patricia Harper how fond you are of those chocolates, so—"
"Hm. That's really nice of you, James." Lily smiled, looking down at the chocolate box.
"Everything for you, Lily—eep!"
"James?"
A flood of pink heart-shaped confetti had erupted from James' mouth the moment he said Lily's name, covering his pea coat, Lily's jacket and most of the floors. Several of the other students getting checked out of the castle for Hogsmeade had turned to look at what was happening, the laughter getting lost among the admiring exclamations from the younger girls.
"Cute," observed Lily, taking some of the confetti from her jacket and looking at them more closely. James realized that Lily actually had one dimple. One cute dimple on her left cheek when she smiled. "How seasonable of you, Potter."
"Not me!" James managed to get the words out amidst more confetti flooding. "Sirius, that GIT!"
Filch had left his post by the doors to stalk over where James and Lily were standing. By the look on his face, James pretty much doubted Filch was going to wish them a happy and sweet Valentine's Day date anytime soon.
"Come on!" said James, taking Lily's hand and pulling her towards the open doors. Pulling out his wand from the pocket of his coat, he aimed in the direction of the ceilings and began to conjure more confetti. He could hear Lily laughing behind him when he started throwing in some wet-start fireworks for good measure with all the horrible pink hearts floating around. James almost slipped on the damned things before reaching the doors, running down the stairs with Lily still holding his hand, out of the castle and they were free.
"Well that was interesting," she said, once James thought it safe to stop and catch their breaths.
James nodded, grinning sheepishly.
But Sirius, if it was indeed him who had placed that confetti hex on James (he did mention the like in one of their conversations that James remembered), was nothing if not thorough. James had barely had enough time to think about the situation more rationally when an owl swooped down to where they were standing, making Lily scream a bit and eliciting a sharp curse from James that made Lily frown.
The owl didn't stay long enough to get hexed to death by one very angry James Potter. Instead, James looked down and saw a piece of black parchment on the snow by his left foot.
"What is it?"
James shrugged, although he had a pretty good idea what was written on the parchment.
The note was concise and pretty much covered everything, written with white ink and in Sirius' unmistakable handwriting:
Mr. Padfoot bids Mr. Prongs a good day and extends felicitations as to the latter's date with Ms. Lily Evans. If you want to speak without scattering those rubbish of a Valentine's Day cliché all over your immediate surroundings, follow these simple steps:
1, Pick one curse from the already crowded reservoir that is your head.
2, Do you have it? Excellent.
3, Use it on Lily Evans.
*
And so the plot thickens. See you guys next!
Also thanks to lovefan81 and the rest of the kind reviewers for sharing their thoughts. My friends added a lot to the plot when my mind is too muddled with unnecessary fluff, but the typos and the rest are of course (and would always be) my fault. :D
