I'm back (obviously)! Missed me? Of course you have! Anyways, I'm hurrying to put this up since I've had you guys waiting for so long now, though I don't have a lot more than this written down although I have a couple of ideas for forthcoming chapters in my head... So it's not too late to hand me some helpful ideas of what you think should happen in future capters or at the date (which I'm prolonging even more now that I've gotten some various ideas from you readers that I would very much like to combine into one... Yeah, I know, how the hell is that gonna happen?) ;)
So without further ado...
4. Breaking the news
As Sirius sneaked upstairs he couldn't be happier with the way things had turned out. Checking his mental notes, all that was left to do now was to:
A: Break the news – or some of them, at least – to James. ("Congratulations mate, I got you a date with the bird you've been chasing for a good third of your life!")
B: Hook Wormtail up with that Marlene-chick.
And C: Have Remus finally tell Lily they were going to accompany her and James in Hogsmeade.
However, it was the C-part that he was in all honesty rather worried about. Because as things had worked out, it had most definitely seemed like the green-eyed witch knew of someone Remus would possibly want to ask out for real. So how would she react when hearing from her friend that he'd be going out not only with a guy, but one of his best friends, who also happened to be the infamous girls-magnet Sirius Black?
Now, it had indeed been quite a while since Sirius had lastly been seen snogging or chatting a girl up in public – he had quit playing the part of the overly-social womanizer as soon as he'd finally realised he actually didn't care much for them anymore, but that he was in fact a great deal head-over-heels with the very much masculine werewolf best friend of his. Ah, the irony!
Though he did not doubt that Lily still considered him the careless, unserious (funnily enough) bad boy he had once been. Kind of conservative, really, but he couldn't very well go and say that right to her face, could he?
He got inside his dorm and closed the door behind him, starting to undress while lifting the silencing charm that would undoubtedly cause quite the fuss in the morning if he'd just leave it like that now.
Though it turned out that he should probably have waited with doing so until he'd already gotten into bed again, because – due to his furry little problem – Remus was an easy sleeper whenever he wasn't hurt and completely exhausted, as was the case after transformations. And apparently the brief sound of Sirius' tapping footsteps against the wooden floor as he climbed out of his friend's pants and threw them where he'd retrieved them was enough to wake him.
"Sirius?" he murmured sleepily, startling the boy in question quite abruptly and made him freeze in his movements. "Is that you?"
Remus sounded more hesitant than ever at such a simple question. Probably because while he saw that the curtain to his right – normally circling Sirius' bed – was open to reveal the emptiness coming of his absence, his werewolf sight allowed him to distinguish the contours and contrasts of the person, and his sense of smell was strong enough to have him notice that something was definitely off – even though his werewolf hearing was arguing against this, also telling him that the figure in front of the door moved like Sirius; breathed like Sirius; was Sirius.
The black-haired wizard didn't know what to do. He couldn't say anything or come closer to Remus like he wanted, because – as it had gone so much smoother than he'd hoped to convince Lily – the effects of the Polyjuice Potion wouldn't wear off yet in about half an hour.
But then it hit him. Maybe he couldn't show himself in this body, but he had another one ready to use. Because even though the potion had made him look like James, he still hadn't turned into him mentally; therefore he still had his own skills, powers and tricks he could perform. Thus, he quickly turned into his dog shape and padded over to Remus' bed to jump up into.
"Padfoot?" Remus whispered in surprise. "What are doing up this late? Weren't you the one who said you wanted to go to sleep early, you mutt?" he asked, but could only hold so much seriousness as anyone could when talking to a dog. "Should've known you were up to something."
Despite his words of suspicion the brunette smiled tenderly and patted the dog softly; tracing his fingers mindlessly through the thick, black fur and sighing deeply; utterly relaxed and not bothering to push him out of the bed as the animal lay down halfway across his chest.
Padfoot licked Remus' hand affectionately and the werewolf laughed lightly, causing the dog to heave and lower in synch with his chest. The two closed their eyes simultaneously, both comfortably drifting into a peaceful sleep in next to no time.
The peace didn't last for long, though. As soon as Sirius woke up a couple of hours later, he heard that James was already up muttering things about how half of his school robe was missing. Black was then immediately on the alert and had to run off from the hand that was lazily stroking his dog head and jump out of bed while remaining as silent as possible.
He sneaked away to James' bed and hurriedly crawled under it while its usual occupant had his back against it. He lay flat on his back as he transformed back into his usual human self – mere inches of knocking his head against the frame as he did so. He then proceeded to struggle out of the pieces of clothing he wore on his upper body, which proved to be an extraordinarily difficult task when trapped under a bed; let alone when he was also putting a great deal of effort not to make any sound.
Though as James rummaged through his things, making increasingly more noise the longer he was looking, he hardly had eyes or ears for anything else and Sirius got away unnoticed as he pushed the clothes so that they were half-visible next to the pile of shoes, socks, pants and ties that were on the floor beside him. He transformed back into a dog so that he'd be able to come out from his hiding place without rising to his feet or having to crawl away slowly. He jumped up into his own bed before he transformed back once more, and was ever so grateful that his curtains – still open at Remus' side – cut him off from James' field of vision.
"Padfoot?" Remus whispered as he hurried to get under his sheet, and Sirius hushed at him and winked.
James seemed to have heard him though, and plopped into reality again as if the nickname had been a code word. He darted to his best mate's bed and ripped the curtains even further apart to make it clear that he wanted Sirius' attention.
"Sirius Black, where have my school robe from yesterday gone?" he asked quite pointedly.
Sirius chose to jokingly avoid the question. "I can't recall the time when I last saw a school robe go anywhere, Jamsie", Sirius informed him calmly. "They don't usually do that, you see."
"Oh, very funny", James said ironically with a very Remus-y roll of his eyes. "Where have you hidden it?"
"Now now, Prongs, remember the first Marauder rule: never make accusations on an empty stomach", Sirius reminded him strictly.
"Funny, I thought our first rule was: never pull the same prank thrice in one week", James said, efficiently distracted from the subject.
"That's interesting, because I never even knew we had any rules", Remus added to make his way into the conversation.
"Well, we have when it suits us, Moonshine", Sirius explained with another wink. "Now, how does my competition to the shower look today?"
He grinned at Remus, who returned the favour, and was about to race him to the shower when James got a hold of his arm and pulled him back.
"Not so fast, Black!" he exclaimed promptly. "Where is my school robe?"
"You're wearing half of it", Sirius stated cleverly.
"And where do you reckon the other half is occupied?" James clarified, frowning and grinning at the same time.
"I suppose it's where you last put it: at the floor, my dear friend."
"I've already checked", he pointed out tiredly.
"Well check again, then", Sirius suggested. "But now Moony beat me to the shower thanks to you, mate. Expect me to take out my revenge on you", he warned. "I do hope you're not going to shower today as well."
But of course, Sirius already knew that he was. The only one who wasn't was Peter, and so he and Remus were the first ones to be ready to head for the Great Hall. They waited however – even if Wormtail was never half as patient as Moony about anything; let alone food – but when Sirius had dried his hair and pulled clothes on James was still in the shower. This had of course been Sirius' plan exactly from the very beginning.
He planned on talking to James alone when informing him of the upcoming weekend's planned events. Thus, he told the other two that they could go ahead to breakfast; that he'd wait for James himself. Remus hesitated but Peter gladly accepted the offer and bolted down the stairs much faster than he was accustomed to, which left Remus to join him without much of a choice.
"Where did the others go?" James asked as he hurried out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel.
"I told them to go if they wanted to have any food at all before classes", Sirius teased; James always got stressed out when late to Transfigurations, but he wasn't in fact running particularly late at all. "I wanted them out of here so that I could be alone with you", he admitted.
James stopped in his tracks. "That sounds… disturbing", he said, and managed to pull up a face of faked worry. "Honestly Sirius, I don't blame you for fancying me but I'm afraid I cannot return your tender feelings", he joked, knowing full well of the direction in which Sirius' 'tender feelings' pointed.
"Oh, shove it you ponce, or else I might not hand you the good news!" he clarified, unable to wipe the excitement off his face.
"What good news?" James questioned with slight suspicion.
"I've hooked you up with Evans", he informed proudly. "You're going on a date with her in Hogsmeade this Saturday!"
James first seemed to think Sirius pulled some cruel morning prank on him, but then his eyes grew wider and wider with the realisation.
"Are you for real, mate?" he exclaimed even more excitedly. "How the hell did you manage that?"
"I have my ways, Prongs; Lily and I made a deal."
James got more wary in an instant. "Which was…?"
Sirius hesitated slightly. "Basically that she'd go out with you… if Remus went along with someone as well, like on a double date", Sirius explained, but hurriedly added: "But that's cool, because I've got that settled as well: he's going with me."
"Wow, he asked you?" James wondered, happy for his best friend as well as he was happy for himself.
Sirius hesitated again, knowing full well that his friend wouldn't be half as happy for him in a minute.
"… Well… I asked him", he admitted, now suddenly very hesitant to continue. "The thing is he thinks this whole thing was Lily's idea, while Lily believes it was his idea; only, she thinks you put him up to it", he explained in very broad outlines.
"Uh-oh", James sounded upon realisation and shook his head. "That should mean that it was actually your idea, Pads."
"Yup", Sirius confessed, not finding any reason to hide it, "but they're all going along with it, so…"
"Hey, no offence mate, but I don't want it to be your idea when Lily agrees to go out with me", James said quite bluntly.
"Don't worry about it, she likes you anyway", the other boy assured.
"Are you sure?"
"Positive", he promised. "Trust me, she was surprisingly easy to convince."
"Cool… but…" James seemed to think something was wrong still, and Sirius understood him completely. "Listen mate, I know how you feel about Remus since you told me and all, but… you know this is really not the proper way of getting on a date with him."
"Prongs, I know, I just…" Sirius sighed. "I want to go out with him, and if it goes well I'll just tell him all about how it really is, and we'll have a good couple of laughs about it."
"Okay, but… well, if he thinks that this is all Lily's idea, I trust you have arranged it so that he doesn't have a clue you actually like him, am I right?" James asked knowingly and slightly reproachful.
"Oh Prongs, you know me too well…" Sirius laughed, trying to bring out humour in it all but failing miserably.
"But if he doesn't know, he probably doesn't see it as a real date, just doing it for me and Lily, right?" the messy-haired teen continued, ignoring his friend.
"Yeah…"
"But then he's completely clueless!" he reprimanded. "He might not even like you that way, you know."
"… Which is exactly why he will remain clueless until I say it's fine that you tell him", Sirius confirmed, now a strict tone adding to his voice. "Which I will never do, because if it'd come down to that at some point, I'd want to tell him myself. So, you are in no way becoming Rem or Lily's telltale on this, otherwise I'll unfortunately have to hex your balls off, okay?" he added threatening, though smiling slightly as this was actually sort of an everyday-custom around the quartet.
"Fine. I'm just saying…"
"Ah, Jamsie-boy, you never learn just to keep your mouth shut, do you?" Sirius teased, wanting nothing more than to just be done with this before they would actually be late.
"Prick."
"Twat."
"Ouch."
"I know, it hurts, doesn't it?" Sirius mocked, feigning heartache. "Now I'd think that a nice thank-you is in order; after all, I did manage what you've tried to achieve for years."
"And I should probably be very worried as to how you did it, Sirius", James laughed, fully serious about his words though. "But, well… Thanks mate. I really appreciate it."
"Good", Sirius said, then pulling himself above the surface of their own little world just to add: "D'you reckon there'll be any food left for us now that Peter has had more than a five minute head start?"
James laughed, and they both started walking down the stairs, the stag spelling his hair completely dry while doing so.
Though once they'd reached the common room they slowed down in surprise upon seeing Remus stand just inside of the portrait hole.
"Moony!" Sirius stated – secretly quite worried that Remus would've been able to overhear parts of their conversation, even if he knew it wasn't like him to eavesdrop. "What in Merlin's balls' name are you doing here?"
"Well, as stupid as it was I figured I wasn't hungry enough not to be able to wait for you two", he explained with a soft sigh. "Peter was, though, so I sent him along, but it turned out I should've gone with him – really guys, to be so quick at the quidditch field, you're incredibly slow in the bathroom!"
"Hey, no fair Moons!" Sirius protested loudly. "You know I was done already when you left – or were supposed to have left, that is."
"Which was why I thought you'd be down soon enough anyway", Remus explained patiently as they started walking towards the Great Hall. "What could you guys possibly have done to take that long to come down?"
"I was just explaining the deal to our Jamsie", Sirius informed loud enough for James to hear and understand that he should increase his pace.
"All of it?" Remus wondered in a low voice, quite clearly taken aback with surprise.
"Nah… as much as I dared to", Sirius said truthfully. "After all, we wouldn't want him to go gossip to Lily once they get together, would we?" he added, creating quite false indications of what he hadn't told James.
He thought it'd be best if Remus believed James didn't know that it was all fake – which it really wasn't, but Remus was clearly under that impression, so that was the way Sirius would keep it.
"But didn't he know already?" Remus wondered slightly confused.
"No, I figured it would only make him an intolerable, anxious idiot if I told him before everything was set", Sirius explained in what seemed to be a very logical line of reasoning; "he would probably be all on edge and try to match you up with anyone he saw just to make sure he'd get his precious date."
Remus nodded understandingly – which made Sirius' chest pang with guilt of misusing the trust the brunette put to him – and the boys quieted down as they entered the Great Hall.
They were about to take their seats when Remus noticed Lily sitting a couple of metres away from their regular spot at the middle of the gryffindor table, and he came to a halt – as did the other two, automatically – when having reached her.
He looked at Sirius hesitantly; inquiring, and the animagus nodded. He wasn't really ready to let Lily know of Remus' "date" quite yet – he hadn't gotten the time to set Peter up with that hufflepuff yet – but he couldn't very well find yet another excuse to drag Remus away from Lily again. Besides, Peter was probably seated far enough away at their regular spot not to hear anything, and so he wouldn't make a fuss about them leaving him alone on the Hogsmeade trip (thereby busting Sirius' whole plan and letting all the effort he'd put into this to go to waste just like that).
"Hey Evans", Sirius said to attract the redheaded witch's attention, swiftly – albeit not as discreet as he'd hoped, as Remus reddened violently – sliding a hand around the werewolf's waist as she turned around to face them.
Lily, too, immediately noticed Sirius' hand and her eyes widened in surprise – though he couldn't yet distinguish any trace of disgust or even confusion as she stared at them; he might have been judging her slightly too hard, to be fair.
Remus blushed again and cleared his throat nervously – Sirius couldn't help but think how darn right adorable he looked right in that instant, but another damn ping of guilt came across him as he took in how uncomfortable Remus seemed behind the mask he'd tried to bring forward to his best of effort – before opening his mouth.
"Lily, I thought you should know that I'll be taking Sirius to Hogsmeade this weekend", he said in a barely audible whisper as to not give the secret away to anyone else than the one he intended to.
James had been standing silently as a well-behaved puppy during this circle of events, but now he simply couldn't hide his triumph anymore – which fitted Sirius perfectly as it made it look more like James had been the one to achieve this result in a matter of hours.
"A double date it is, then!" he beamed happily, though he tried to keep his voice down.
Lily gaped at them, but then a smile steadily started to grow on her lips and she actually seemed genuinely happy at the information she'd received. Maybe she wasn't all that bad after all, Sirius thought with some satisfaction.
"Really?" she asked, and looked extra long at James while on the alert for any objections. "That's great!" she added when no one seemed to have anything to interject.
She shot James another glance – looked at him for much longer than she'd ever done before, and almost seemed to be proud of him – much to James' confusion and thrill.
"Okay, then", she nodded as she noticed how Sirius seemed eager to get away (so that nothing more would be said – or given away). "This Saturday it is."
Sirius smiled triumphantly as they sat down to join Peter the few minutes they had left before they'd had to get to class. Three steps out of four on the preparation-ladder were completed, and he almost hadn't had time to feel bad about lying to so many people yet.
So what do you think? Worth waiting for? Am I dragging things out too much, or are you happy with the details? Make sure ta lemme know!
I also wanna say thank you to all my wonderful reviewers! Especially the ones reviewing the latest chapter, throwing lots of precious ideas my way. You guys are gold to me (and hopefully some of you will take up reading this chapter again even though I made you wait so long! Again, sorry about that - my vaca would've been so much better with accses to internet!)