Author's Note: This song is from 1983. I will just defy the laws of time. Screw you, time. You know where to shove it.

Augh, I found a typo in Chapter Nine, too! THE Chapter Nine! I'm going to go cry myself to sleep. Sob.

Rowling never explained how seven floors of Hogwarts show up on a two-dimensional map. So I made it up myself.

Writer's block is the bane of my existence. But when it finally goes away, you get scenes like this last one.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Wet

Sirius was in the dorm, getting his ass kicked at chess—again. He and Peter were lying on the floor with the chess board between them, and the phonograph was on—as usual. The album was one that Sirius hadn't actually heard before. A woman was singing.

We are young

Heartache to heartache, we stand

No promises

No demands

Both of us knowing

Love is a battlefield

"This is crap, Peter," he remarked, nodding towards the record.

"No, it's Pat Benatar," Peter corrected mildly. He then proceeded to take Sirius's second bishop with sickening ease.

It was at that moment that James walked in, looking like he'd guzzled Dionysus's best vintage and topped it off with some ambrosia. He flopped down on his bed and sighed happily. When the other two ignored him, he sighed happily a bit louder and more obviously.

"What is it?" Peter asked obediently.

"Lily kissed me," James reported breathlessly.

Sirius paused. He then paused while pausing to hate the pun on "paws." That done, he went on to wonder exactly how he felt about this new advent. Was he annoyed that James was usurping his position as the Primary Womanizer? Was he proud of his partner in crime for getting his act together and getting some action? Was he the eensiest bit jealous that he hadn't snapped up Lily Evans first? Was he glad for James—pleased by default because his best friend was so overjoyed, and his brother's feelings spilled over into his? Was he all those things at once?

Or was he just tired of hearing about Lily?

But if we get much closer, I could lose control

And if your heart surrenders, you'll need me to hold

Sirius wished that infernal Pat Benatar woman would shut up for a few seconds and let him work this out.

"It was the most amazing thing ever," James continued blithely. "I thought I'd died and become proof that there is a heaven. I was thinking how I could go and write theological articles, except that I was dead."

Peter said, "Um."

"Seconded," Sirius noted. "Eloquently put, Pettigrew."

"Thanks."

"Oh, not at all. You deserve it."

"I'm going to ask her to go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend," James declared, apparently blissfully unaware of the way he was being mocked.

"But we're going to Hogsmeade this weekend," Sirius put in, fighting down a bit of anger that flared hot and white in his chest.

"We go to Hogsmeade every weekend," James replied.

"What's your point?"

"I've been to Hogsmeade with you guys a million times. I've never gone with Lily." There was another contented sigh, another deep exhalation to release the overflowing passions. Sirius wasn't sure who he was going to bitch-slap first, Jamesy Wamesy or Lily Billy.

"I repeat," he said. "What's your point?"

"That going with Lily is special," James answered, reverently.

Sirius was about ready to go find a real lily and shove it up his ass. Preferably a real lily that was covered in iron spikes. "And we're not?" he prompted.

"Your turn," Peter interrupted. He had taken Sirius's knight.

He had also rerouted the fuse that would have lit a pile of dynamite the likes of which the world had never seen—and he probably knew it. James would have unthinkingly said something stupid, Sirius would have killed him and gone to Azkaban, and Peter and Remus wouldn't have had anyone to get them into trouble. This way, with the crisis averted, everybody won. Right?

"I forfeit," Sirius mumbled, getting to his feet.

Peter stared at him. Sirius could understand the incredulity. Usually, he played every game of chess to the bitter end, even when it was painfully clear that he was doomed. But he didn't have the heart for it. Not right now.

Slamming a few drawers getting his toiletries together helped a little, though he wished he had an available skull upon which to shut them. Then again, that would have gotten blood and cranial fluids all over his nice, clean underwear. He contented himself with frowning at the dresser, as if it had personally offended him. As if he actually had a reason for his stomach to be churning the way it was, unsettled by that mysterious, insurrectionist mixture of confusion, resentment, disgust, and melancholy that everything seemed to conjure there nowadays.

He wanted to mutter to himself as he stomped down the stairs, but that was out of the question. Sirius Black did not mutter to himself. He did not talk to himself at all, and if he did, he wouldn't mutter, he would shout in a resounding voice and describe the unparalleled notions of his inimitable mind in perfect iambic pentameter.

It was a good thing he had refrained from muttering, because when he reached the common room, Jasmine Levitt and some fifth year—Alana? Elaine? He couldn't remember—were sitting on one of the couches, giggling to themselves.

If there was one thing Sirius didn't understand about women—well, there were about eight thousand things, but if there was one in particular—it was the giggling. Not only was it the single most annoying sound in the world (with the possible exception of Regulus singing in the shower), it just seemed… unnatural. Why couldn't they just laugh outright, like normal human beings? Why did they have to be all weird and alien and giggly?

"Hi, Sirius!" Jasmine called. "Want to join us?"

There were few things in the world Sirius wanted less, but the next thing he knew, his feet were carrying him towards them, and then his legs mutinied as well and dropped him into a chair. It was clear that his butt wasn't in on the conspiracy due to the way that it hurt.

"What's new?" he asked.

"Vanessa's got so much homework," Jasmine reported.

Vanessa? Sirius thought absently. He'd been way off on the name.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he replied automatically. Smooth as a rain-slicked street, that was Sirius Black.

"Well, that's life," Jasmine decided with a shrug that she probably thought was very delicate and endearing. "You do what you can."

"Oh, definitely," Sirius agreed.

The thing was, Jasmine wasn't even very cute. In fact, she wasn't too cute at all. In fact, she had buck teeth and kind of a weird chin. But Sirius had sort of vaguely gathered that flirting with something female would make him feel a little better—and, more importantly, would force him to focus on something other than Jamesy Wamesy and Lily Billy.

Speaking of Lily Billy, it wasn't too many minutes of insipid small talk later that she came floating in. Without so much as acknowledging any of the present company—what passed for company, anyway—she then floated up the stairs and disappeared into the girls' dorm.

Sirius hoped vindictively that she'd float out a window and go sailing off through the sky, eventually coming down somewhere in Australia, where she would name kangaroos Jamesy Wamesy until a black mamba put her out of her misery.

"What's she so happy about?" Jasmine giggled.

"I haven't the faintest idea," Sirius lied. And if you giggle one more time, he thought, without much fire, I'll giggle right back, and then you'll be sorry.

A little more small talk passed a few more minutes, and then Remus came in, looking bemused. That was familiar, at least. Remus looked bemused a lot. Sirius liked to think that he was imagining elaborate ways of killing people behind that innocent exterior.

"Hi, Sirius," Remus said, sitting down nearby. "Hi, Jasmine. Hi, Vanessa."

Of course he knew the names. Remus knew things like that.

"Talk to you a minute, Remus?" Sirius inquired casually. Remus opened his mouth to answer, at which point Sirius grabbed his sleeve and dragged him out into the hall. He pulled the Map out of his pocket, tapped it seven times to make it show the seventh floor, and checked cursorily for potential eavesdroppers. As all looked to be safe, he wiped it clean, shoved it back into his pocket, and looked at Remus. "Lily kissed James," he said bluntly.

Remus opened his mouth. He closed his mouth. He pursed his lips. He raised his eyebrows. And then he opened his mouth again and declared, "I see."

"Glad I didn't," Sirius muttered. "Probably would've made me puke." He sighed. "Gossiping session over. I'm going to go take a bath."

Wincing a little, Sirius thought, Remus put in, "It's after curfew."

Sirius shrugged. "A man's got to be clean one way or another."

"Password's changed," Remus told him, apparently giving up already on dissuading Sirius from violating the rules. "It's 'verified truth' now."

Sirius frowned. "The truth," he decided, "is overrated. Lies can be much nicer."

Like a cat staring at empty air, Remus looked off down the empty corridor. "Lies are fragile," he replied softly. "And as such, they break."

Sirius tried not to think about that statement too much as he made his way down to the Prefect bathroom, using the Map to avoid any messy encounters. As a general rule, he tried not to think about anything too much. If you really thought about things, they didn't hold up, and the next thing you knew, your whole life was in pieces.

Submerging himself in the water was like easing the tightness of a bottleneck. His thoughts started to flow again, smoothly and liberally, instead of smashing themselves against the brick wall of stymie until they bloodied their shoulders. Breaking the surface again, Sirius ran his hands through his hair and breathed deeply of the thick steam rising from the water. He knuckled his eyes and blew out his breath, watching ripples spread.

"What's wrong?" a high, almost warbling voice inquired hesitantly.

Though he was gauging the distance to his wand in his head, Sirius feigned utter calm as he turned slowly. When he saw that it was that Myrtle character, he relaxed.

Myrtle beamed at him. "You can tell me about it," she offered eagerly. "I won't tell anybody."

Sirius considered it. He really did. It was clear that Myrtle would sit there, earnestly nodding and smiling, as he progressed from recapitulation to rant to flat-out tirade. But was that what he needed? Would getting himself worked up about it solve the problem? Of course not. What he needed was a nice, healthy dose of reality followed by a chaser of humility. In short, he needed to get the hell over himself.

"It's really nothing," he said to Myrtle. "I'm overreacting."

Dreamily she smiled. "You're gorgeous," she announced.

A wheel of potential reactions cycled through Sirius's head, coming slowly to a stop so that the pointer would indicate one emotion. What would it be today, ladies and gentlemen? Horror? Disgust? Disbelief? Hilarity?

Click, click, click, click… Politeness. Politeness? Well, that was disappointing.

"Thank you," Sirius said.

"You're welcome," Myrtle replied dotingly.

Shrugging mentally, Sirius turned his back on her where she was floating with her chin in her hands like the Cheshire Cat and went about his business. Growing up in a Pureblood family, he'd lived half of his life in front of an audience; he wasn't unsettled by it now.

Well, he did make sure she was gone before he got out. He had some shame.

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

By the time Remus trooped up to the dorm, James was asleep, despite the fact that Peter was still listening to his music contentedly. Even as Remus opened his mouth to ask who the artist was, the Fifth Years shouted in unison from the other side of the wall.

"Turn that shit off!"

"It's Pat Benatar!" Peter yelled back indignantly.

"We're sleeping!" they insisted.

"Evidently you're not!" Peter replied.

Remus smiled. If there was one thing about Peter, it was that you couldn't fault his logic.

"Jus' turn it off, Peter," James mumbled, muffled both by bleariness and by the pillow in which his face was buried.

Sighing, Peter flipped the appropriate switches and silenced the machine. He tossed himself onto his bed. "Nobody has any musical taste around here," he declared.

Remus had the distinct feeling that musically tasteless teenagers were the least of their worries.

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

His ominous feelings came to fruition not long later. And all because of a bit of pumpkin juice.

Remus liked pumpkin juice—really liked it. It was a little bit sweet, but not so much that it gave you that feeling like your teeth were coated in sugar, and it had a wonderfully thick consistency. Sometimes, as when he was plagued with ominous feelings and other unpalatable, unrealistic, and nonetheless persistent worries, Remus overindulged.

When he set the third glass of pumpkin juice back on the table, he knew he was going to regret having drunk it. But he had no idea how much.

After two hours of Transfiguration, Remus was jogging his foot impatiently, biting his lip hard, and watching the second hand on the clock. It seemed to be moving excruciatingly slowly simply to taunt him. Oh, what a cruel thing clocks were. Merciless and implacable.

Finally they were released, and Remus shot out of the classroom like he'd been lit on fire.

It was as he was washing his hands fastidiously that the ominousness came to a zenith with two words:

"Hello, Half-Blood."

Startled, Remus looked up. In the mirror he could see a boy standing behind him—the same Slytherin who had threatened him and Noelle. His hands stopped moving, and the water flowed heedlessly and unheeded over his skin.

The boy smiled.

Before Remus could so much as reach for his wand, the Slytherin grabbed his hair in steady, unyielding fingers and slammed his head into the mirror. Glass cracked under his forehead, splintering his reflection, and he was halfway to a cry when the Slytherin jerked him backwards and threw him to the floor. The tiles grazed his elbows; the back of his head slammed against the granite; stars burst wildly before his eyes. Desperately he rolled, scrabbling with his fingers, trying to crawl away, to slink out of range, to disappear, to escape—

He choked on a breath as the Slytherin snatched his collar from behind and yanked backwards, slinging him to his feet. Remus drew blood on his own neck fighting the fabric restricting his windpipe as the Slytherin dragged him backwards towards the wall, where he released his captive. Remus tried to sink to the floor, gasping. The Slytherin seized his shirtfront, hauled him to his feet, waited for him to draw a ragged, reedy breath, and then took it away from him by planting a heavy fist in his stomach. Its brother followed it; they took turns; Remus pushed and writhed and fumbled for his wand only to receive a blow to the face that nearly stole his consciousness. Hearing his own breath whistle forlornly, he looked up into the blank, apathetic face of his assailant. One word beat itself against his brain in synchronism with his thundering pulse.

Why?

But he knew why.

The Slytherin wrenched him forward, giving him a moment to lurch dizzily, and then hurled him back against the wall. Once more his head collided with a surface much harder than its own; once more Remus stumbled, but this time, when his knees gave way, the Slytherin let him fall. He tried to catch himself on his arms, but his elbows wouldn't hold, and the gray-green tiles of the floor rose rapidly to meet his cheek. Pain blossomed one more time, blazing and numbing at once. Remus barely felt the foot that connected with his ribs. Something wet was pooling under his head, and from the sharp, invasive metallic scent of it, it was blood. His blood. His half-blood.

Footsteps departed, leaving nothing but the vertigo, the maelstrom of partially-formed thoughts, the throbbing persistence of the pain. Remus closed his eyes. Maybe when he opened them, the hurt would be gone.