Regulus spent the rest of the afternoon looking for Sirius, and finally caught up with him at dinner.
"Two. Two to one," he said, casting an evil glare in the direction of James Potter, who seemed to be snickering into his blood pudding.
"I believe what you mean is three to two," Sirius said, not glancing up from his copy of Quidditch Illustrated.
"I don't remember hearing about number two," Regulus said, his eyebrows set at disturbingly severe angles.
"Do I have to tell you about each one before I move on to the next? Because that might be difficult. I'd have to be waking you up at all hours of the night, interrupting your lessons, and so on and so forth." Sirius took a sip of his tea and turned the page of the magazine.
"Those are the rules."
"They are not."
"They are so."
Sirius put down his magazine for the first time. "They are not."
"Perhaps you two ought to sit down and actually work out the rules before you continue this asinine competition of yours," Remus Lupin, that drab boy whom Regulus always had trouble remembering, said.
"You know that's not a bad idea, Moony. Take a seat, Reg. And for God's sake, stop squinting at Remus like that, you know perfectly well who he is."
"I was not squinting, and we have to do it on neutral grounds," Regulus said, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Besides, it's hardly proper dinner conversation." Potter snorted.
"Right, well, twenty minutes from now in the library, then."
"Fine."
"Fine."
"No way. No points for hand holding, are you kidding me? We might as well be seven years old."
"Well, what about spooning? Like, just sleeping with the girl, but not 'sleeping' with her, you know. Actually sleeping."
"There's nothing overtly sexual about that."
"Maybe not, but most birds won't let you do it unless they wanna... Well, at least do something."
"Okay, well, how about 1/2 point for spooning."
"Agreed."
Madam Pince shot them her third death glare of the evening. She was looking particularly venomous, probably because she could tell they weren't talking about schoolwork, but Sirius figured she wouldn't kick them out until their volume increased a few more decibels, so he was doing his best to be conciliatory towards Regulus. After about forty-five minutes of deliberation, the point system stood as such:
Sexual Act: Point Value
Spooning: 1/2
Snogging ≥ 30 seconds with continuous open-mouth contact: 1/2
Under shirt breast fondling: 1
Exposed breast fondling: 1 1/2
Under skirt fingering: 2
Exposed vagina fingering: 2 1/2
Cunnilingus: 3
Received handjob: 2 1/2
Received blowjob: 3
Vaginal intercourse: 5
"No points for gross stuff," Sirius said. "I don't want to hear about it."
"And you don't get points for both under clothing and exposed."
"Of course not, it's one or the other."
"Well then, shall we compare scores?"
The next few weeks were rather turbulent ones in the Gryffindor seventh year boys' dormitory.
Sirius was rarely seen without a piece of parchment in his hands, typically muttering to himself under his breath and adding and re-adding sums. At first, his friends' reactions had been widely variable.
James had been concerned that Sirius might lose his mind over the bet, Peter that he might attempt to have sex with Peter's girlfriend, and Remus had found it all highly amusing. After nearly twenty-eight days of it, James's feelings on the matter had shifted from those of friendly concern to those of vague rage. Sirius's obsession with the "score" was preventing him from participating in many of James's more lighthearted schemes and to be honest, he was beginning to feel a little jealous. It was nearly the winter holidays, and the one semi-date he'd managed to finagle with Lily had gone frankly atrociously. He'd not yet convinced her to even talk to him again, much less give him a second chance. And here Sirius was, with, after four weeks of competition, a score of 15 1/2, and no, James did not want to know which combination of actions had led him to accrue that specific number.
Peter was handling things better. He had long ago decided to inform Anne of the little bet, after swearing her to secrecy, and was reasonably confident that the disgust she showed was genuine and that neither Sirius nor his weirdo brother would have any luck trying to score points with her. Once he had dealt with that source of worry, he had spent most of his time humoring James and being his accomplice in a number of minor scams.
As for Remus, the humor of the situation had worn off rather quickly, and he now treated any conversation involving the bet with contempt and poorly contained ire. It must be admitted, however, that the upcoming full moon may have contributed to his irritation, deny it though he might.
Things with the sixth year Slytherin boys were not much better. At first, Evan and Rabastan-but in particular Evan-had set out to be as antagonistic as possible to Regulus's chances of winning-doing things like sneakily tripping him while he tried to sweet talk a girl or spreading rumors that he had venereal diseases. They had soon tired of this, though, when they realized that great fun though it was tormenting Regulus, a victory for Slytherin over Gryffindor was always a good thing, no matter on which field of battle.
But Rabastan couldn't help but be more concerned by another field, or rather, pitch. The annual Quidditch match against Gryffindor was coming up, and while typically Regulus was focused on Quidditch above all else, to the point that during the season his marks tended to take a rather radical turn for the worse, this competition was eating up the vast majority of his time: if he weren't chasing after some bird he was brooding over the scoreboard, moodily examining his hair in the mirror, and devising outlandish methods of seduction. Rabastan understood, though, better than Evan did, why Regulus was acting the way he was: Rabastan, too, had an older brother.
In fact, Rabastan understood Regulus's position so well, that he was beginning to formulate wild ideas about how to get Sirius Black back on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. A healthy, murderous sporting rivalry would surely divert Regulus's attention from this silly wager. The only problem was that Sirius had been removed from his position as beater and permanently banned from the sport in his fifth year, for a foul so heinous it had been stricken from the records (but rumor had it, it had something to do with why Quincy Hardaway, the former Ravenclaw captain, walked funny after that). Of course, normally Rabastan would have liked to uphold bans against players with predilections towards making opposing captains walk funny, but right now it was the only way he could see to get Regulus back focusing on what mattered.
Two weeks before the all-important match against Gryffindor, Rabastan went to talk to Madam Hooch.
Regulus, meanwhile, was making plans of his own.
The contest, he had noticed, had slowed recently. It was no wonder why. There were only so many sexually liberated birds, and once you got through with them, what could you do? There were girls out that wouldn't even have sex with someone as good-looking as he considered himself to be without months of dating and relationship-building nonsense first. There were some girls who wanted to wait for marriage!
The very absurdity of the idea forced him to sit down and have a nice cup of tea to calm his nerves. Luckily, he told himself, he didn't needto have sex with them. The way the contest was headed, the points were coming in at a crawl and sometimes not at all for days. And then they were always so close in points that Regulus was confident it would come down to a matter of a point, or even half.
That's when he hit on his most brilliant idea to date. Who was the one girl he knew that Sirius would never ever dare to go after, never even make eyes at across the Great Hall? Who was the one girl in Hogwarts of fuckable age and status who was absolutely off-limits to Sirius, who would mean unanswerable points for Regulus if he could so much as give her a nice, chaste kiss on the lips?
Lily Evans, of course.
Friday, precisely two weeks before the Gryffindor and Slytherin Quidditch match was an eventful day for all of our heroes and villains.
James and Sirius were eating lunch in the Great Hall when Professor McGonagall approached them in the middle of their meal.
"Mr. Potter, Mr. Black," she said, her typically stern expression mixed with a hint of confusion, visible only in the worry lines at the corners of her mouth. "I need to talk to the two of you." When they exchanged questioning glances and were slow getting up, McGonagall raised her voice, "I mean now, gentlemen."
"All right, all right," James said, getting up, his shoulders slumped over and his expression surly. Sirius followed suit.
"What have we done this time?" he asked as McGonagall led them out of the Great Hall and into the corridor.
"I am quite sure that to say 'nothing' would be a gross misrepresentation of the facts, but I'm not here to talk about that. I want to talk to you because of a conversation I had with Madam Hooch this morning.
James shot Sirius a wary look and the two of them shrugged at each other.
"She said that yesterday afternoon, a student wishing to remain anonymous came to her with some, well, bizarre evidence regarding the unfortunate incident with Quincy Hardaway."
"Hardaway," Sirius muttered under his breath, clenching his fists and narrowing his eyes.
McGonagall pressed her lips into such a thin line that for a moment Sirius believed she would permanently lose the ability to part them.
This belief was proven to be mistaken more or less immediately. "Mr. Black, I would refrain from giving the impression that you are anything other than the best of friends with Mr. Hardaway and are genuinely regretful about his unfortunate injury."
"Well, I might have to work on the 'best of friends' bit, but I certainly don't wish the bloke any harm-and never did, as I have always maintained." Sirius did his best to pull an injured face for McGonagall, sniffing perhaps a bit too dramatically.
"Yes, well, fortunately for you, this apparently concerned witness has come forward with evidence which appears to exonerate you from any wrongdoing." McGonagall sighed as though torn between doubts of the veracity of said evidence and her desire for a Gryffindor Quidditch Cup.
"Really?" Sirius said, his voice rather more highly pitched that usual due to elation.
"Brilliant!" Was James's only reaction, and he put it quick on the tail of Sirius's question, as though to head off any possibility of McGonagall adding an addendum to her pronouncement, along the lines of, "But that witness was soon found to be psychologically disturbed and profoundly befuddled and as such we are launching an investigation into your possible involvement in his bewitchment."
"We'll start practicing right away, c'mon, Sirius," James continued breathlessly, tugging on Sirius's arm, probably still concerned that the other shoe was about to drop.
"Is that right, Professor?" Sirius asked, voice as raspy as if he were asking her whether she would like to come to bed with him (and if he and Regulus had thought to put some kind of bonus for sexual activities with members of faculty and staff into the point system, he might have, too). "Do I get to play again?"
It might have been a delusion brought on by elevated levels of serotonin, but he thought McGonagall even cracked a smile. "Yes, that's what it means. But I expect you to be the absolute model of proper Quidditch etiquette and sportsmanship from here on out, Mr. Black, or I shall remove you from the team so fast your head will spin and you'll be polishing Slytherin Quidditch trophies for the duration of your Hogwarts career."
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Now, I suggest you gentlemen get practicing. I think you know who Gryffindor faces in two weeks."