Whew, sorry about the delay on this chapter. This is marks the first chapter where we were will be working on a consist timeline rather than year hopping. More about this at the end though. I don't own anything except the OCs! Enjoy!
"Peter, stop hogging all the potatoes!"
"You already had some!"
"So did you! You're on your third plate, time to share!"
The Gryffindor table was usually the loudest at the sorting ceremony and the fact that it was the Marauders and companies last year at Hogwarts, they weren't holding back for anything. A squabble broke out between Peter and Amery over the biggest bowl of mashed potatoes while James argued Quidditch strategies with a fifth year boy named Robins.
Lily and Mary talked animatedly about their summers, Mary and her twin sister Maggie had spent the holidays in France, somewhere Lily had always wanted to visit. Sirius and Ruby sat beside each other, each exceptionally quiet given the occasion. Even Remus, who was notoriously the most mild mannered Gryffindor to exist, was talking more than the two of them.
Sirius sat facing the Slytherin table, his handsome face marred by a dark glare. Regulus Black determinedly avoided eye contact with brother, making a point to chat with Severus Snape, knowing how much his brother hated him. Sirius had been okay during the summer, only occasionally withdrawing from his friends after running away from home. But now that he was back in school, and his brother who acted like he didn't exist was only a few feet away, it was hard to put on the trademark Padfoot grin.
Although she had physically recovered from the Death Eater ambush, Ruby was still unnaturally quiet. She had bounced back to normal in a few weeks, after spending those weeks with Jude who helped her work on defensive magic. She staunchly refused to talk to anyone about what happened, besides her older brother. She felt bad shutting Amery out like that, they always shared everything. But what happened was too much for her to discuss with him. He had been distraught the following weeks, obsessively shadowing his sister. Ruby couldn't take it any longer and vowed she wouldn't worry her family anymore with the mess that was going on in her head. She had been fine on the train ride to Hogwarts but had quieted considerably during the open ceremony.
Loren Wilkes openly stared at the Gryffindor table, clenching his jaw. His father had been the only Death Eater caught from their summer escapade and was currently sitting in Azkaban. Ruby couldn't take credit for his capture though, that was all James. It had been James to knock him out in order to get to her while she writhed on the ground curtsey of his Cruciatus.
Noticing that Ruby was staring off towards the Slytherin table, Lily shifted in her seat effectively blocking Wilkes' line of sight. "Roo, you still thinking about changing your hair?" She gestured to her friend's head full of her signature vibrant red hair.
It took her a moment but she snapped out of her thoughts and grinned. "Yeah, I had to wait until we got here, mum would murder me. McGonagall will have a fit, but at least I'll escape murder." Now that she wasn't fixated on Wilkes, Ruby smiled easily.
"No time like the present!" James butted in, nudging Sirius in the ribs. He jumped slightly but turned away from his brother promising himself that he'd corner him later. He could talk some sense into him, it was his last chance. He could convince Regulus to leave. It was a matter of making him understand. The entire Black family with an exception of few, were poisonous and all Sirius wanted was to save his little brother from that fate.
"Wait, what?" Sirius questioned, his thoughts had been clouded with hypothetical conversations with Regulus, he had not paid any attention to what his friends were saying.
"Ruby is gonna ditch the red for a while." Mary piped in, blowing her own dark hair from her eyes. She recently had cut off her long dark hair, rocking a chic bob that cut off at her chin.
Sirius raised an eyebrow in her direction but said nothing. At this point, he couldn't imagine Ruby with anything but red hair. Although it had been completely accidental, he had been the one who turned her dish water blonde hair red, and she had kept that color ever since. There had been subtle changes over the years, but it always remained red.
Before Sirius could question what ridiculous thing Roo planned on doing with her hair now, he felt her tense up beside him. Usually Ruby Zeller was not the kind of person to back down, or bow out of situations. Other students were frequently annoyed with her ability to make something out of nothing. There wasn't a time that Ruby would let a Slytherin give her the side eye. Her thinking had always been to get them first.
Sirius glanced up from the table to see Wilkes now pushing himself up from the Slytherin table and stalking towards them. As far as he was concerned, the entire Wilkes family was not worth much of anything. Even by Pureblood standards, they were one of the less prominent families who desperately tried to hide the fact that their family was riddled with muggles, mudbloods and squibs. It was a long time coming that Loren's father was thrown into Azkaban. He made no attempt to hide his affiliation with Voldemort, no one was surprised to find out that it had been Loren Wilkes Sr. caught torturing students in a muggle town.
None too discreetly, Sirius pulled his wand from the pocket of his robes and gripped it tightly. Remus caught notice the fastest and mirrored his friend's movements, the rest of the seventh year Gryffindor's following in suit. Ruby was the only one who had yet to move, seemingly frozen in place. Her face had drained of color and Sirius could see her fingernails digging into her palms. He wanted to tell her that she squeezed any harder, she'd break skin.
He had never seen her react that way to well; anything and it unnerved him to say the least. He watched as Wilkes slid past the Gryffindor table, waiting for him to linger more than a second so he could blast that smug smile off his face. He just moved past, making sure to shoot Roo a self satisfied smirk before leaving the Great Hall with the rest of his slime ball friends.
Loosening his grip on his wand, Sirius reached under the table, gently touching Ruby's clenched fist. She jumped at the contact, instantly going red in the face.
"I'm really tired, I'm going to bed." Ruby mumbled, as she hastily pushed herself away from the table and scrambling away. Both Sirius and Amery made a move to follow her but remained seated after Mary stood.
"I'll talk to her." The tone in her voice left no room for discussion. Without saying so, they all knew what she meant. No one else understood what it was like to have an unforgivable curse used on them. Although it hadn't been the Cruciatus, the Imperius and the after math had been extremely traumatizing for Mary. No one outside their circle of friends knew that she still went to Mungo's to seek therapy and sometimes had to take potions to help sleep and quell her anxiety.
Sirius tried hard not to be resentful towards Mary as she followed after Ruby. He knew that she would be the best one to talk to her, but he still felt a strong pull to chase after her himself. He didn't know what to make out of the strange stirring in his chest when he thought about Roo being upset, but Sirius knew he wanted to be the one who comforted her. He glanced over at Amery, who wore a similar mask of dejection. Ruby hadn't been talking to him, not about what happened, Amery had told him that much.
"She'll be fine. Mary understands." Sirius offered to him, not only trying to make Amery feel better but himself.
"Yeah," Amery only muttered a dark look on his face as he stabbed the chicken on his plate.
"Hey Sirius," Dorcas's voice rang through the air like a bell. Normally he'd welcome the distraction; the slender Hufflepuff would have been a fine way to take his mind off things, off seeing Regulus, off of Ruby.
"Not now Dor." Sirius shook his head, looking up to the fire that was bound to be in Dorcas's eyes. Sure enough, her hazel eyes were light up and her mouth set in a firm line. Although she wasn't really the jealous type, not after how many times they had broken up for Sirius to pursue someone else, Ruby had always been a sore spot with her.
Honestly, it wasn't until last year that Sirius had started to feel a little more than brotherly love towards his classmate. Even still, he wasn't comfortable pushing up on Ruby like that. He knew how he was in relationships, he got bored. He didn't want to ruin such a good and easy friendship with something as complicated and potentially hurtful as dating.
"Seriously, not now." Sirius cut her off as she opened her mouth but firmly clamped it shut. Dorcas chose to say nothing, which surprised Sirius more than anything. She was hardly the type of person to hold her tongue. They got into rows often because of her inability to just shut up for once. She gave him one last scathing look before stomping away back to the Hufflepuff table.
"I'm going to bed too." He mumbled, stuffing his wand into his robes and hurrying out of the Great Hall. Maybe he could catch up with Mary.
It wasn't the girl's dorms that Mary eventually found Ruby, her knees pulled up her chest, and red eyes that shown she had obviously been crying. No, Mary found Roo sitting on the floor of the first floor bathroom, which ironically had been the very place where she had encountered her own unforgivable curse.
"Hey Roo," Mary said softly, sliding down the wall next to her friend, gingerly slipping an arm around her shoulders.
"I threw up." Ruby answered, her voice hoarse and weak. More tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes, as she rocked back and forth slightly trying her best to keep on an even keel.
"I still do sometimes too," Mary rubbed comforting circles into her back. She never directly talked to her friends about what happened, about what Mulciber did and tried to do, never spoke about how it still affected her. She still didn't want to talk about it, not really. But she saw a friend, someone she loved in very much in a bad place that Mary had frequented one too many times before. "Sometimes I see him in the corridors, you know? It takes every bit of me not to toss up my lunch. It takes me a minute when I see him. I just freeze up and for a few seconds I'm back in the bathroom and he's standing over me again. Eventually I snap out of it, but for a few minutes, he takes over again. I dream about it too, but in dreams you can't run away like in real life."
Ruby didn't say anything while her friend talked, just clutched onto her tightly thinking about her own dreams. She didn't know what her attacker had looked like; her parents had kept the prophet from their home after he had been arrested. But she imagined he looked similar to his son, dark brown hair with sharp blue eyes that cut through her. She dreamed of Death Eater masks, red hot knives that broke skin, what it felt like to have her bones broken over and over again.
At least Loren Wilkes Sr. was in Azkaban; Damian Mulciber was still at Hogwarts. Still free to terrorize other people, Mary included. Suddenly Ruby didn't feel so bad for herself, but it was replaced with an intense hatred for Mulciber.
"I know it's hard Roo, and I'm not saying all this stuff just to make you feel better. You're not alone." Mary's voice suddenly lost the detachment she had fought so hard to keep and was thick with emotion.
"Thank you Mary." Ruby's voice was muffled as she threw her arms around her friend. The girls sat like that for a while, until the sounds of giggling second years entering the bathroom broke them apart.
"C'mon. We better get back up to the commons before people start rumors about us." Ruby quipped with a soft smile on her face. She swiped away her errant tears and pushed herself off the ground, offering a hand to her friend.
"Let 'em talk. They're just jealous they couldn't land two fine ladies like us on their best days."
"Very true, you look like you belong on a fashion magazine with that hair cut." Ruby pushed open the stall door, ignoring the increased giggles of a bunch of twelve year old girls.
"Thanks," Mary's cheek turned bright red at the compliment as she beamed. "No one will be talking about me once you color your hair. Are you seriously going to try pink? Everyone will think Sirius hexed you again!" Her laughter bounced off the corridor walls, as they started their trek to the Gryffindor common room.
"Maybe then McGonagall won't kill me." Ruby answered with a grin. Although she loved her red hair, loved it more than she ever liked her natural color, she liked to experiment. She spent the first half of summer holidays entertaining Naomi by trying out ridiculous hair colors. Although most of them turned out horribly (namely the booger green she had attempted), a bright bubble gum pink had suited her. Naomi and herself both rocked the color for the remainder of the day until Orla had come home and nearly died on the spot. None of her daughters would be walking around with pink hair on her watch.
That's why Ruby had decided to wait until Hogwarts to try it out again.
"Better not let Dorcas think Sirius is messing around with you or your hair, she'll have a meltdown." Mary rolled her eyes. Although she was generally friendly and got along with most people, Mary Macdonald and Dorcas Meadowes were not friends by any stretch of the word. Once Dorcas had made an off color remark about Maggie without realizing Mary had been in ear shot. Ever since then, Mary was not a fan. She even encouraged Ruby to aim for her during Quidditch matches.
"Pft, Dorcas can stuff it!"
There was a hopeless sort of pathetic look on Padfoot's face as he watched Ruby and Mary ascend to the girls room, arm in arm.
"And you call me pathetic." James snorted in his friend's direction, watching as his chess piece overtook one of Remus's.
"I told you not to move that there," Peter chimed in, watching as Remus's piece was dragged off the board. Peter was their resident Wizarding chess expert; he was so good that people refused point blank to play him anymore to avoid the embarrassment. He usually settled on giving snarky advice from the comfort of a plush chair instead.
"Piss off Wormtail," Remus muttered, his eyebrows furrowing in concentration trying to map out his next move.
"What are you on about Prongs?" Sirius finally dragged his eyes away from the girls stairway, giving up hope that Ruby would come bounding back down.
"You're staring at Roo like a lost puppy trying to follow his master." James retorted, a sly smirk on his face, and not just because he was whooping Remus's arse at chess. He always had a feeling about Ruby and Sirius, but kept it to himself. Padfoot had the tendency to overreact a bit when you called him out on his feelings. It was easily one of the most annoying things about him. Although he had yet to succeed to win Lily Evans over completely, he was still a one woman kind of man and he didn't understand why Sirius spent all his time chasing after Dorcas when it was clear that it wasn't Meadowes he wanted to be with. Sirius didn't know, but the rest of the Marauders had a working bet when he would finally bit the bullet so to say and just ask Roo out.
James thought he lost last year when he found them on the couch together. Peter however, had been overjoyed thinking that he had won the bet and was a disgruntled troll the rest of the week when nothing came of it.
He knew Sirius, probably more so than any of the other Marauders. They were all close, but he and Sirius shared a bond that alarmed even his own parents. Knowing Sirius so well, meant he knew that nothing would come of him and Ruby until he completely wrapped his head around his feelings which, being completely stunted when it came to emotions, James knew could take a while.
"I was not." Sirius insisted, shoving James's in the shoulder. He risked a cautionary glance over at Amery who stared moodily into the fire. Although they got along very well, knowing the mood Zeller was in, it was probably not best to be making cracks about his sister. He may not have cared, or at least acted cool about it last year after he was caught sharing a sleeping space with Ruby, but Sirius knew that Amery was deathly serious about keeping an eye out on Roo. Especially after what happened over the summer.
After the couch incident, Amery had gone out of his way to talk to Sirius. Even if Sirius was in denial about his feelings, he knew Ruby wasn't. She may not be open to the object of her affection about it, but she certainly didn't try to sugar coat it to Amery. Sirius didn't appreciate the over protective brother routine but he understood and went out of his way to avoid being in a similar situation again.
In his own head, where no one else could pry into his thoughts, Sirius could easily admit to having feelings, what feelings he didn't know, but feelings none the less for Ruby. Did it mean he wanted to date her? Did it mean he wanted to commit to someone he really cared about? Not to say he didn't care about Dorcas, because he did, he had known her for such a long time, but it was different. It wasn't like with Roo. Ruby, he could talk too, Ruby who never pushed him, not really anyways and always backed off when he made it clear. Outside the Marauders, he could say with confidence that she was one of his best friends.
He wasn't prepared to lose that.
"Right, whatever you say mate. It's just like saying Remus doesn't have poorly behaved rabbit that he has to tend to once a month," James carefully dodged the chess piece Remus aimed for his face. He wasn't a chaser for nothing. "Null and void, right?" He shot his friend a cheeky grin.
"Merlin, you are bloody infuriating." Sirius shook his head, pushing himself up from the couch. "I'm leaving before you say anything else thick." He rolled his eyes heavily as James's ridiculous cackling, and made a beeline for the boy's dorms. He paused briefly beside Amery, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry too much mate, she'll come around. If she doesn't, I know how to get up into the girl's dorms." He offered the boy a weak smile, knowing how it felt to want to reach out to a sibling who was determined to ignore you.
"Thanks mate." Amery responded quietly before snapping the book in his lap shut. "Think I'll head to bed too."
As the two boys trudged up the stairs together, a voice that sounded suspiciously like James rang out from the common room.
"Great job Padfoot, can't get the one twin, so you go after the other!"
So I hit majooor writers block with this one. I'm still not completely happy with it (the ending in particular) but I wanted to get something up. I wanted to end on a happier note since this chapter was a little heavy with Ruby and Mary. But my brain kept taking a turn for the depressing. Another reason this has taken so long, I started to write up a character sheet for nearly every character that will be featured in this story so that was consuming my time for a bit. I'm working on a timeline because pacing is my biggest problem with writing and I don't want this story to drag. I have a question for everyone reading and would love some feed back on it! A lot of my ideas for this story right now are actually things that happen post graduation, and I'm currently drumming up some things to happen during their seventh year. My question is, where do you want to see this story go? Do you want more focus on the Marauders and company last year? Or would you prefer a shorter amount of chapters being focused on Hogwarts so we can get to life after school and focus more on the war? I'd love some suggestions because like I said, right now a lot of my ideas revolve around post graduation. Of course I don't want to short you all on Ruby/Sirius's first arc as a couple which largely consists of coming together during their last year. But I also don't want the chapters to drag.
Am I making any sense? Ahaha, lack of sleep is getting to me. Either way, please review and let me know what you think! Again apologies for taking so long!