Disclaimer: Still not mine. Ask me again tomorrow.
Chapter Two
{1982}
Sirius Black's skin had once been smooth and flawless. His hands had been especially beautiful. Scions of the Black family legacy couldn't be bothered with the sort of menial tasks that put scars on most people's bodies. God forbid one should develop a callus.
But the padded feet for which Padfoot got his name had long since grown cracked and abused from many days of wandering over rough English countryside and now city pavement. His dark fur had grown long and tangled, and he was pretty sure he smelled badly both as a canine and a human. But he was never human long enough to care how he smelled as one.
That didn't stop James from complaining.
"It's been, what, three weeks since your last proper wash? And that was in a nasty campground shower. I beg of you, Sirius, take a bath. The city's less likely to call pest control on you if you don't smell like a bag of shit. I mean, I can't smell you, but if I could, I don't think it'd be roses, mate."
Padfoot shook himself as he walked, as though to shake off the annoying presence. But James' steps matched his perfectly, and his talking was endless. There was no need even to pause to catch a breath, because James had no need for breath anymore, or to dodge out of another person's way on the crowded sidewalk, because he walked right through them – or rather, they walked right through him. Although, every now and then, someone would glance into a polished shop window and see the reflection of a thin, messy-haired, bespectacled young man walking alongside that of a black dog – then turn, and see the black dog walk by, but no man. Few people were attentive enough to notice this discrepancy, but if they did, the dog was gone, disappeared into the crowd, by the time they'd turned for another look.
"It's a bit like that game in the Prophet, for kids: 'what's wrong with this picture?'" was how James liked to put it.
"Really, mate. Duck into a chain store bathroom or something," the ghost only Sirius could see or hear continued to complain.
Padfoot growled a little in frustration, but altered course, dodging between scant traffic towards the gas station across the street. He padded up to the bathroom door, which looked grimy and disgusting and was built into the left side of the building. Sounds of flushing inside made him scuttle around the corner to hide, but as soon as the door opened, he dashed out, slipped past the man exiting the bathroom, and slid inside just before the door snapped back shut.
He waited for a moment to see if the man would yank the door open and shoo him outside, but nothing happened. So with the familiar shift of transformation, he became a man again, sitting sprawled on the cheap linoleum floor. Springing to his feet, he locked the door, flicked on the light switch, and leaned heavily against the bathroom sink. For some reason it felt like a struggle to tilt his face towards the moldy old mirror.
He looked horrible.
Still a handsome bugger, naturally. It was just hard to remember that bugger under all the sweat and dirt and dishevelment. His hair was too long, hanging greasily past his shoulders. It reminded him shudderingly of Snivellus. James must have been thinking the same thing, because he looked into the mirror over Sirius' shoulder and made the face he used to make only when Snape entered the vicinity.
"It's alright, mate," he said. "Just splash some water on your face and you'll look and feel loads better."
"I will, will I?" Sirius' voice was croaky from disuse. He didn't have much opportunity to be human anymore, so James had been doing enough talking for both of them recently. "That's got to be magical water, then, 'cos I feel like crap."
"Well. You should also maybe wring your shirt out in the sink." James shrugged at the annoyed look Sirius gave him. "Just a suggestion. Don't frown so much, mate. You'll start to look like – "
"Don't – say it. I know. I know." He took a deep breath, then pulled off his torn and dirty shirt to bundle over the drain. Turning on the faucet and allowing the sink to fill up with water, he scrubbed the shirt with the bar of soap in a little ceramic holder, then scrubbed the soap under his arms and over his neck and shoulders. The water felt good on his hands and divine on his face, dripping down his jaw-line and washing the filth away. It was cold, it was sparing, but it made him feel cleaner. He almost remembered feeling truly clean.
James sat on the closed toilet lid behind him and hummed the Star Wars theme. This was not so far-flung from days not so long ago.
But he still couldn't believe that there had been a time when showering was a communal experience, and one he'd looked forward to for several reasons.
{1977}
Hogwarts, Seventh Year
"My head is saying, 'fool, forget hiiiim' – "
"Sirius!"
"My heart is saying, 'don't let go-o-ooo' – "
"SIRIUS! I swear to God!"
"I'm not the first to know, there's just no getting over you-oo-oo…"
"If you don't shut up I'm going to come over there – "
"I'm hopelessly devotehhhhed to you-ooo-ooooo…"
" – and smash your skull against the tile 'til we all have to shower twice to get the blood off!"
Sirius jerked the shower curtain open and leaned his head out to smirk at his hapless friend in the next stall over. James never pulled the curtain completely shut, because that impeded showertime conversation, and everyone suspected he just enjoyed getting the floor sopping wet so that people would slip and break their necks in the dead of night; or at least, so that Remus would stand in the dormitory doorway and lecture them all on how easily he could have slipped and broken his neck in the dead of night. "Now, Jamesie, methinks you're just a little sore that you didn't get a date to the dance tonight."
"No, actually, Sirius, I want you to shut up because you're a godawful singer and no one should be subjected to this torture!"
Sirius frowned in mock-offense. "Well, I'm not that bad. Am I, Moony?" he asked the properly-drawn shower curtain to his right.
"The quality of your singing is debatable, Sirius, but you have screwed up the order of the verses pretty badly."
Good old dependable Moony.
This statement was followed by sullen silence, brought on - Sirius knew - by the fact that James was enraged at Remus for agreeing to take Lily to the dance that night, and that Remus did not want to provoke James' wrath by forcing conversation. Sirius stood, half under the spray of the shower head, and half leaning out of his stall to glance between those of his two closest friends on either side of him.
After a moment's consideration, he pulled his head back in, only to twist off the spray and leap out a moment later, singing at the top of his lungs.
"THERE'S NOOOOWHERE TO HIDE, SINCE YOU PUSHED MY LOVE ASIDE!"
He ripped open James' shower curtain, and, ignoring the scandalized howl of his naked best friend, pulled him, slipping and sliding, onto the main floor of the bathroom. "SIRIUS, YOU MADMAN, I'LL KILL YOU!"
"I'M OUUUUUT OF MY HEAD, HOPELESSLY DEVOTEEHHHHED TO YOUUU-OO-OO-OOO!" Sirius struggled to maintain his grip on his equally feisty and determined friend as he twirled him around the bathroom in a forced, nonconsensual waltz. "HOPELESSLY DEVOTEEHHHHED TO YOUUU-OO-OOOOO!"
Remus finally made an appearance, popping his head into the open to frown disapprovingly at the two boys tussling in front of the showers. His hair was darker when wet, and water rolled down his bangs and made graceful arcs along the fine bones around his eyes. Sirius always noticed when Remus was wet.
"Sirius, let the poor man go," he scolded.
James bristled indignantly, scowling in the approximate direction of the young lycanthrope (which was difficult, because Sirius was still spinning him and his vision was truly crap without his glasses on). "I don't need help from you, you traitor!" He punctuated the last bit by stomping his heel down hard on Sirius' naked toes. Sirius released him with a howl of pain, whereupon James stormed back to his shower, dripping soapy lather and water as he went. They had left a trail of the stuff in their wake as they had danced.
"James! James, don't be unreasonable!" Remus shouted along to the boy two stalls over. "I know you're upset, but Lily asked me, not the other way around. It would have been rude not to say yes!"
"No, it would have been rude not to tell your fellow Marauders about this development outright," James shouted back, "and instead leave them to pick it up on the Gryffindor grapevine!"
Sirius winced at the harsh tone of James' voice. He knew well the sting of learning unpleasant information on the Gryffindor grapevine. The Gryffindor grapevine was a bitch.
Remus rolled his eyes and drew back into his shower. But he was not safely back under the spray for long before Sirius decided that another must take the place of his forfeited dance partner. The taller, darker-haired boy pushed past the plastic barrier and seized Remus around the wrist, yanking him out into the communal area easily, though of course he had the element of surprise on his side.
Remus stumbled over the low threshold of the shower stall and then hydroplaned, smack, into Sirius' chest. Which left them more or less aligned in every other part of their very naked bodies, as well.
It took a moment for Sirius to realize how stupid a move this had been.
"Um, oops," he said. Silence ensued.
"Indeed," said Remus. "I think the words you're looking for are, 'Hopelessly devoted'..."
He trailed off, matching Sirius' gaze exactly, and though he did look a little surprised, Sirius couldn't help but admire how calm and collected, even wry, Remus had managed to stay despite the uncomfortable circumstances.
They stared pointedly into each other's eyes, to avoid having to look at other parts of each other's anatomy. That would have been unwise, under said uncomfortable circumstances.
"'Hopelessly devoted'," Remus said again, voice clearly prompting. Sirius twitched a little in surprise.
"Oh, that is - to you. 'Hopelessly devoted to you'."
"That's right." Remus stepped back, removing his hands quickly from Sirius's. Was it his imagination, or was there a little sucking noise when their chests separated? The awkwardness only continued a few moments more, before Remus added, "I'd love to teach you the rest of the lyrics so you can butcher the song properly, Sirius, but I do have quite a lot of shampoo in my hair I'd like to wash out."
"Yes - me too."
They retreated to the safety behind their own respective shower curtains. Now there was silence in all three stalls, though while James' was still sulky, the silence from both Remus' and Sirius' stalls was a different sort. Happier and more humiliated. Sirius smacked his head lightly against the wall a couple times and thought he heard Remus do the same. Then he stood washing the rest of his body and smiling like a lunatic, and though of course he could not hear it, he thought he could imagine Remus doing the same.
When they stepped out of the bathroom a few minutes later, safely swathed in towels, Sirius said lightheartedly, "You blokes will regret turning down Sirius's Special Shower Room Dance Practice once you see me cutting a rug out there tonight!"
"I pity the girls who agree to dance with you," muttered James, rubbing another towel over his hair.
Remus smirked as he passed Sirius on the way to his trunk at the foot of his bed. "And do ask their permission first, won't you?"
{1982}
"How d'you think she looked?"
Sirius was drawn from his reminiscence by his faithful ghost's uncharacteristically quiet voice. He glanced over his shoulder in the mirror and saw James sitting, cross-legged now, on the toilet seat, hands folded loosely in his lap.
There was no point asking who he meant. There was only one "she" when it came to James Potter.
"Good." Sirius rinsed the soap from his shirt and then wrung it as dry as he could over the sink. "She looked great."
"She looked awful."
"Well, yes. But if I said your wife looked awful, I expect you'd punch me in the gut." He paused, considering the logic of this statement, and then amended it with, "Well, you'd try to."
James ignored him. "She was all sallow and sad, and she was smoking. When did Lily start smoking? She hates that sort of stuff."
"Things happen, mate. People change."
"Don't I know it. Rem was smoking, too. Of all people, Lily and Remus! And working at a muggle café, at that. People change, all right." James sighed, staring down at his semi-transparent hands. "I wish they wouldn't."
"They didn't change all that much, James." It wasn't often that Sirius played the comforter in their relationship; not before, and certainly not now that it had become so unusual, so strained and paranormal. "They stuck together, didn't they? That counts for something."
James allowed half a smile to quirk the corner of his lips. "I suppose. Like we did, eh?"
"That's right." Sirius dragged the shirt on over his head, and didn't bother to mention that, in this situation, their sticking together had nothing to do with their choosing. It still had to count for something.
TBC...
A/N: Yes, I know "Hopelessly Devoted To You" was released one year after Sirius is singing it in this story, but please, for my frazzled Muse's sake, bend reality a little, won't you? And also, I took a few liberties with the design of the Gryffindor boys' bathroom. I simply can't remember the way it was described in the book, and anyway, this way is more conducive to my plot. So...screw canon! Um.
I can't thank you guys enough for the last chapter's reviews! They made me happy. X3 So please continue to let me know what you think so far. R/R much loved!