Author's Note: Ow, my face. Damn wisdom teeth.

More music I don't own from 1978 (and 1979, too!). I cheat.

Yeah, this chapter is way, way, way out of character. The tone is entirely different. It took on a life of its own. I'd apologize if I didn't love it.

CHAPTER NINE

Magic

Sirius Black was having a shitty day.

It wasn't even that anything really bad had happened—or nothing in particular. Just the usual. He was tired of Peter beating him at chess. He was tired of doing homework. He was tired of Noelle Cook trying to waylay him in the halls. He was tired of Remus dragging his feet around the common room, unable to go to work. (Sirius had never understood why he wanted to work in the first place, but having him sitting around wishing he was there was just frigging depressing.) He was tired of the curfew. He was tired of Severus "Lead Asshole" Snape and all his subordinate asshole pals. He was tired of James chewing on his quill trying to write sonnets. (James stoutly denied that he was writing sonnets. Sirius had stolen one of the afflicted parchments and there discovered fourteen lines of mediocre rhyme and a few doodled hearts. Furthermore, "Accio sonnet" was effective, which spoke volumes by itself.) He was tired of just about everything. Plus he had a nagging feeling that something really, really terrible was going to happen, and he hated omens more than just about anything else in the world.

Fucking omens.

Morosely he watched Peter take his queen. Damn that insufferable woman, not defending herself… Why were they all damsels in distress all the time? Why couldn't one of the bitches just take care of herself once in a while?

Sirius was starting to hate women. Not that he was, you know, gay or anything. Just that they were all obnoxious twits, and it drove him insane. Lily Evans was all right. She didn't fuck around. But she was kind of like his sister. James's main squeeze and all that dated shit.

He heard The Cars's unrelenting guitars in his head.

Here she comes again, when she's dancin' 'neath the starry sky; I think you'll flip

Here she comes again, when she's dancin' 'neath the starry sky

Here she comes again; I kinda' like the way, I like the way she dips

'Cause she's my best friend's girl

Well, she's my best friend's girl

And she used to be mine…

Except not.

Damn Peter and his vast array of music for every occasion.

No, Sirius Black did not like Lily Evans. He was adamantly unyielding about that particular fact. And, whatever songs popped into his head when he ruminated about it, he was pretty sure that it was true. Lily was a little too… normal… for him. She and James made sense together. And she was basically the sister he'd never had—all supportive and low-key and stuff. Not the wild, vibrant, too-bright-to-look-at kind of girl he needed.

But God, if Noelle Cook wasn't the worst female on the planet ever to take an interest in him. He half-wanted to take her out once and then dump her in front of a crowd just so she'd leave him the hell alone. Likely she'd buy it, too, if he faked it well enough. But that was hard. And it took effort. And he was so tired.

Being downright sexy was just so hard sometimes.

"Sirius," Peter said.

"Yes?" Sirius said.

"It's your turn," Peter reported.

"Oh," Sirius said.

He chewed on his fingernail a little and then sent a pawn to its untimely death. Peter sent a bishop after it, and Sirius took the bishop with his rook, wishing he had his damn queen back. The heartless bitch, going and dying on him like that. How dare she?

"Oh, Hell!" Lily cried. As everyone blinked at her, Sirius included, she jumped up, swiped hopelessly a little at the ink that had splattered all over her nice shirt, and then ran up the stairs to her dorm.

She had a pretty nice ass, Sirius reflected. You know, in a sisterly way.

Auuuughhhh, his brain said.

Sirius sniffed in response. You can recognize that your sister is good-looking, he defended.

AUUUUGGGHHHHH, his brain repeated, louder.

When Sirius had finished beating it upside the head—proverbially speaking, given that it was his brain—he saw, to his absolute un-surprise, that James was watching the way Lily had left. He was wearing his Dreamy Smile (a trademarked James Expression from the James In Love Collection), and he was gazing after her like she had been a passing goddess.

"She's very stressed out," James remarked breathlessly.

"Clearly," Sirius replied crisply.

Peter took his rook.

Sirius wanted to scream.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The moon was waxing. Remus itched his chest compulsively. It was late afternoon, the Gryffindor common room was unusually empty, he had a nice, long Herbology essay to write, and there was already a fuzz of stubble on his chin. The stuff grew like mold when the moon was almost full. It was extremely annoying.

So was the utter silence in the common room, come to think of it. Remus liked a little quiet as much as the next guy—probably more—but it was a little eerie, and that distracted him more than a bit of noise would have. Bemusedly he tried to whistle "A Little Less Conversation." Unfortunately, he didn't whistle very well, and it did little but remind him of Severus's magnificent rendition of "Dies Irae." The implications of that particular song had not eluded him.

Remus was trying not to mope. He didn't like moping. It really didn't help. Besides, he hated being a wet blanket. Being any kind of blanket was bad enough, and wet was the worst.

At that moment, the blanket shredders burst through the portrait hole.

"She's winding them down on her clock machine," Sirius, James, and Peter were singing, a good ways off-key. "And she won't give up, 'cause she's seventeen. She's a frozen fire; she's my one desire… And I don't want to hold her down, don't want to break her crown when she says—" Here they paused and danced poorly before they shouted, "Let's go!" There was some more shameless gyrating. A few people had come down from their dorms to look. "I like the nightlife, baby! She says, 'Let's go'!"

Sirius hopped onto the couch, mimed an elaborate guitar solo, and leapt off again at the end to smash his invisible instrument all over the furniture. He narrowly missed stepping on James's glasses, which had fallen off at some point. James, for his part, continued to dance, accompanied by Peter. They vaguely resembled a cross between an amoeba, an octopus, and the recipient of a brutal electric shock.

Remus laughed harder than he had in a long, long time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

That was the thing, wasn't it? Even as they skirted across the wet lawn towards the Willow, that was what went through Remus's mind. What they had—the cohesion, the completeness, the camaraderie—was it, was the whole point. It was why they worked. They complemented each other. They were the four corners of a square, and without each of those vertices, the structure would collapse.

There was nothing in the world better than being one of those corners. Remus had set a tentative foot on that scarlet train the very first time with misery sinking deep in him, weighted by a leaden certainty that he would be spending his seven years sitting alone in the library getting hit in the back of the head by parchment airplanes. When the First Years had been ushered into the Hall, he had been nothing short of terrified. He had spent the train ride trying to be inconspicuous, and now they were going to single him out, the way they were singling out Alan Bailey. Remus wanted to cry. They would put the Hat on his head, and he would sit there forever, shifting, shuffling, fidgeting, and then they would say, "No, sorry, you're not a wizard after all; our mistake," and send him back out, and he'd have to find his way home all by himself—

Someone had punched him in the shoulder.

"Nervous?" his assailant inquired conversationally.

Remus rubbed his arm, more because it gave him something other than trembling to do than because it really hurt. He didn't say anything, because he didn't trust his voice. His white face probably said it all anyway.

"No need to be," the attacker told him airily. He was a tall boy with long black hair and gray eyes, with "aristocrat" written in every line of his face, his grin wide and almost genuine—but that there was a hint of worry in it, just as there was a whisper of strain in his light eyes.

Remus was utterly intimidated.

"Really," the boy went on. He seemed to be reassuring himself as well. "There's nothing they can do to you without your permission, right?"

"Well—" Remus had begun in a tiny voice.

"Sirius Black!"

"Whoops," the boy said. He fought his way out of the huddling host of eleven-year-olds, stumbled, and then strutted over to the stool. Once perched on it, he jammed the Sorting Hat down on his head, crossed his legs primly at the knee, and arranged his folded hands on them.

Remus was awestruck.

Sirius Black sat on the stool for a long time, squirming a little. After an excruciating pause long enough for Remus to realize he was holding a breath, let it out, take a new one, and loose that one as well, the Hat bellowed, "Gryffindor!"

That's a good one, right? Remus had demanded of himself anxiously. He wanted the boy to be happy.

There was dead silence in the Great Hall but for the soft scuffle of Sirius Black's shoes against the floor as he stood up and set the Hat down. Remus saw that the green table—Slytherin, he was pretty sure—was chock full of open mouths and disbelieving stares. So was the red table, which he was pretty sure was the House that had just received Sirius.

It was to the latter group that Sirius turned solemnly. Then he cracked a grin, threw his arms in the air, and screamed, "Whoohoo!"

The Gryffindor table erupted in deafening cheers and applause.

By the time they got to Jasmine Levitt, who went to the red table as well, Remus was dying of horrible anticipation. He was going to get rejected from the school. He was going to throw up on the Sorting Hat. He was going to get stuck in Slytherin. He wasn't sure which would be the worst.

"Remus Lupin!"

His legs were going to give out. His stomach was going to twist itself out of existence. His pulse was going to explode out of the pounding veins in his temples.

It was an impossibly long walk to the stool. The tiles of the floor extended onward forever, stretching out as he crossed them so that he'd never reach his destination. Sweat beaded at his hairline as he watched them bewilderedly. That couldn't actually happen, could it?

Of course it could. This was a magic school. And he was a magic idiot.

Forcing another quaking foot in front of its predecessor, he happened upon a terrible revelation. The Hat wouldn't want to put two students in Gryffindor in a row. Jasmine Levitt had just gone there, right before him. Surely it would send him somewhere else.

He almost gave up and ran out.

Then he was tripping on one of his shoelaces and narrowly missing slamming his chin down on the stool. Between having the wind knocked out of him and being surrounded by the laughter that issued from all sides at once, his head rang something awful. Cheeks burning, mortified tears pricking at his eyes, he scrambled onto the stool and pulled the Hat down low over his crimson face. At least it was a nice place to hide until they kicked him out.

"Well?" the Hat prompted. Somehow he knew that only he could hear it.

Gryffindor, please, Remus thought desperately. Please, please, please, please—I know you don't want to, but please—

"Heavens, boy," the Hat responded, sounding a bit surprised. "That bad?"

And worse, Remus thought back frantically, swallowing hard.

"Well, why? Ravenclaw would be wonderful for you. Lots of useless information in this old brain of yours, lots of studiousness—"

But Sirius is in Gryffindor! Remus protested frenetically.

"Odd one, that Black. Even more stubborn than you are. What of it?"

He's the only person who's said anything to me, Remus explained meekly.

"So it's about friendship, is it, then?"

I—I guess—we only just got introduced, but—

"Gryffindor-ish enough for me. Let's make it official, shall we?" The Hat made a noise that sounded like clearing the throat it didn't have, and then it roared "Gryffindor!" in a voice that Remus knew was audile to everyone in the Hall.

Remus thought he might have heard the Hat say "Good luck" as he took it off and placed it on the stool with hands that shook harder than he would have believed was possible.

Clearly, his legs had learned from the recent fiasco, because they took him to the exuberant Gryffindor table all by themselves. Sirius scooted over to make room for him, pounded him on the back, and shoved a goblet of something cold into his hands.

"Well done, Lupin!" he shouted over the chaos. "Brilliant face plant!" At Remus's dazed expression, he went on, "Drink something—you look like you're going to pass out." Mindlessly Remus obeyed, and the liquid flowing down his throat revitalized him somewhat. "Can I call you Loopy?" Sirius inquired politely.

"Your nose is bleeding!" a pretty girl with red hair squeaked. She had just been Sorted, too, but Remus didn't remember her name. She fished out a clean white handkerchief with an L embroidered on one corner and made him take it. He pressed it to his nose and discovered that she was right.

There wasn't time to say much else, because Peter Pettigrew and James Potter were then Sorted into Gryffindor in rapid succession. Brazenly Sirius pushed an older boy to leave space for the two newcomers on his other side.

"You're bleeding bloody everywhere," James Potter informed Remus.

Sirius howled with laughter at the pun. Remus surprised himself by smiling weakly.

Despite the fact that Sirius never called him 'Loopy' again—and, furthermore, called him 'Lupin' only on the rarest of occasions—it was very clear even then that something extraordinary had happened that day. Something… magical.

That seemed fitting.