Chapter 25 – Summer Holiday
His Uncle Alphard had done alright for himself, Sirius reflected as he made his way down the narrow staircase to the ground floor. The old house was full of beams that Sirius wasn't particularly fond of, and it was definitely smaller than what Alphard would have been used to before he disassociated himself from the family, but it was also in the middle of the lush countryside - much more desolate than the Potters' house - with fields that seemed to stretch on for miles. Sirius thought the open space and late July sun made it the perfect place for flying, but when he'd mentioned so to Alphard, he'd just laughed at the comment, and told him that the last time he was on a broom he'd broken too many bones to count.
What Alphard did have, though, was a motorbike. Sirius recognised it instantly as a similar model to the glossy pictures he'd secured to his bedroom walls at home years ago, minus the scantily clad woman that had been as rebellious as he'd dared at the time. The bike was black and sleek, if a little beat up, and when he asked where Alphard had got it from the man just shook his head as though thinking of a fond memory and told Sirius he'd been working on fixing it up.
"Do you want to take her for spin?" he'd asked, apparently unconcerned by the fact that Sirius had never driven before.
Of course, he had jumped at the opportunity, and the majority of the two weeks he'd spent with his uncle had been spent racing across the fields, scaring the shit out of birds and learning how to turn corners just right so as not to go head first into one of the fences. The first time he'd tried it, he'd made it barely the length of the driveway in a straight line before jolting alarmingly to the left and falling head first onto the dusty gravel. Thankfully, he'd improved quite a lot since then, and although he was looking forward to getting back to the Potters', he was quite sad to say goodbye to the only member of his family who'd paid him any semblance of positive attention in years.
"I'm glad you decided to come," Alphard smiled when he reached the bottom of the stairs, "I'd quite forgotten what it was like to feel like a teenager."
Sirius laughed, a strange surge of warmth towards the man welling up in his chest. It had been slightly awkward when he'd first arrived, being alone with a family member he hadn't seen in ten years, but Alphard joked easily, and seemed content to let Sirius do as he pleased around the house – a sure fire way to win his favour after years at Grimmauld Place.
"It was fun," Sirius replied, and despite his reservations upon receiving his Uncle's invitation, he found that he really meant it.
"I thought perhaps instead of using the floo, you might want to take the bike with you."
"What?" Sirius said, stopping half way to the living room.
"Well I hardly have any use for it these days," Alphard chuckled, gesturing to himself.
"You're not that old," Sirius argued, but he still followed his uncle towards the front door.
"I should hope not!" Alphard agreed, "but I never took to riding like you have, she'd be happier with you. And don't be modest now, what 17 year old boy doesn't want a motorcycle to show off to his friends? It'll be quite a hit with the ladies I should think."
"You're really giving me this?" Sirius asked as the keys were pushed into his hand.
"Just take good care of her," Alphard grinned.
He ended up arriving back at the Potters' later than expected. Alphard's house wasn't too far a drive, but it was significantly slower than flooing, especially when Sirius was unfamiliar with the roads, and had to stop twice on the way back to ask unsuspecting passers-by for directions. When he finally made it back to the house, James, Lily, Remus and Peter were lingering around the front porch, all dressed in an arrangement of brightly coloured summer shorts and tops that made Sirius smile.
"Well that looks…potentially lethal," Remus commented, eyeing the bike warily.
Remus was not alone in thinking that riding around on a half-tonne hunk of metal was less than safe, especially after only two weeks of learning how to ride it, and even when Sirius insisted he knew exactly what he was doing, Mrs Potter convinced him to leave it in their garage while they went on holiday - much to everyone's relief.
It was then time for them to leave, as afternoon was fading into evening and the sinking sun was casting long shadows across the Potters' front lawn.
"Be safe," Mrs Potter said, hugging each of them (causing Lily to shoot Remus a slightly startled look, not being used to James' parents' habit of semi-adopting any teenager who wandered into their house).
"Don't hesitate to tell us if you have any problems," Mr Potter added. "I know you're all very capable of taking care of yourselves, but you do tend to end up in trouble as often as not." He gave James and Sirius - who, of course, tried their best to look innocent - a look that was meant to be stern but was betrayed by the corners of his lips twitching upwards.
And then they were off. James had recently passed his apparition test, which he'd be too young to do when the rest of them had taken it in March, which saved them the bother of flying or getting a portkey set up. For what must have been the fifth time, Peter showed everyone the picture of where they were going, and they all picked up their luggage, shut their eyes, pictured their destination in their minds, and span on the spot.
When Siriuss opened his eyes, he was standing in a field just outside of the caravan site, far enough away that no muggles would have seen them appear out of thin air.
"Everyone okay?" he asked. They were all standing within ten feet of each other, their expressions ranging from mildly dazed to nauseous.
"For once, I'm splinch-free," Peter declared, and everyone else looked down at themselves to check they hadn't left any body parts behind.
"Always a good start," James said. "Now let's go find our caravan, shall we?"
They all followed him to the little shack that acted as a reception area, but James quickly became very confused when he couldn't find the reservation number, and Sirius was just about to produce a handful of galleons from his pocket, so Remus, Lily and Peter took over.
When they finally found their caravan, it was past 7pm and all any of them could think about was food. After a quick scuffle over beds (Lily and Sirius won the two top bunks and Peter got what he optimistically called a sofa bed but was really just a sofa), and a glance at the kitchen, which was pretty much just a hob and a single cupboard with a patch of mould in the corner, they declared themselves settled in and went in search of dinner.
Besides the place where they checked in and the bathrooms at the other side of the field where the tents were, the only other building on the campsite was a large pebble-dashed 'clubhouse' with a slanted roof and cheerful neon signs on the windows claiming that they offered a 'bar, food and games'. Warily, the five of them made their way inside, and were pleasantly surprised that the interior of the bar was actually fairly nice, with decent looking tables and booths scattered around one side of the large room, where a number of people were already eating and drinking, and pool tables, foosball and slot machines on the other side.
"What on earth is that?" James asked as they walked past one of the slot machines in all of its flashing, whirling glory.
"It's for gambling," Lily laughed, and pulled him towards the nearest, comfiest looking booth.
They ordered burgers, chips and two pitchers of beer. Lily didn't bother asking how the boys managed to get served when there was a sign behind the bar strictly declaring that everyone under the age of 21 must show ID, but she strongly suspected magic had been involved.
The food was nothing special, but it satisfied their rumbling stomachs, and with no other ideas for how to spend their night, they settled upon drinking their way through as much beer as possible. James went to the bar and Lily obligingly followed to help him with the muggle money.
"I think purebloods should all have to take muggle studies because you're so confused by the simplest things," she said. "A hundred pence fitting into one pound makes way more sense than wizard money. And telephones are much more efficient than owls and there are options other than robes for when it's this hot, which most adults don't seem to realise."
"Certain halfbloods who may or may not live within half a mile of you could do with studying it too," James said. He then shot her a worried look. "I mean, I know he's your friend and all"
"My friend? Seriously?" Lily handed over some cash to the bartender. "Snape hasn't be my friend for over a year, James. Do you think I'd be friends with someone who called me a mudblood? Who stood by and watched Mary get attacked? No matter how close we used to be, those aren't things I'll ever forgive."
"He never deserved you," James said solemnly.
"Neither do you," she replied, but she grinned.
By the time they'd finished off their third pitcher of beer, Lily was feeling well and truly giddy. The bar had filled up significantly since they'd been there, and now that food had stopped being served, the music was louder and there was a distinct feeling of a 'package holiday' that reminded her of the few trips she'd taken to Wales with her family in the summers when she was younger. She didn't even notice she was leaning against James' arm until he shifted beside her and casually draped it over her shoulders.
Sirius rolled his eyes at them and she stuck out her tongue in response.
She quickly lost track of what the boys were talking about, too busy watching the crowd around them to pay attention, but when Peter returned with yet more drinks she couldn't help but notice the girl with curly black hair who watched him slide back into their booth with a slight tint of her head.
She was standing apart from a number of other people who were most likely her family, tapping on the edge of a bar stool in a manner that suggested she was bored and didn't know what to do with herself.
Lily felt a pang of sympathy for the girl, knowing how much she'd hate to be in a crowded bar alone, so it was with a smile that she leant across the table towards Peter, interrupting whatever he was about to say to Sirius, and whispered, "don't look now but the cute girl at the bar is checking you out."
"What!?" Peter squeaked, and did exactly what Lily had told him not to, looking towards the girl before turning back to them with a faint blush creeping up his neck.
"What's this, Wormy?" Sirius asked from next to him, craning his neck around to get a better look at the girl Lily had indicated. "Huh, it looks like Evans was right."
"Don't sound so surprised!" Peter said, shoving Sirius in the ribs. Then he looked to James and hissed, "should I say something to her?"
"Absolutely!" James said, gesturing over the table at Peter in a way that betrayed just how much he'd had to drink. "The night is ours my friend, grab it by the horns and er…" – he looked to Lily for help, but she only raised an eyebrow at him – "ride it?" he finished weakly.
"I think what Prongs means to say," Remus corrected, "is that you should go and talk to her Pete."
"Right." Peter agreed, nodding determinedly and straightening the collar of his shirt. "Okay."
"Good luck mate!" Sirius bellowed into his ear, shoving him good naturedly out of his seat.
The four of them watched him wander over to the other side of the bar and say something to the girl, who immediately smiled and laughed.
"Wow," James said, leaning back in his seat. "Pete's actually got game."
"Don't be rotten," Lily said mildly, swatting at his arm. "He's not bad looking."
"Careful Prongs," Sirius joked, "maybe Evans is secretly after one of us."
James looked momentarily panicked, but the sound of commotion from across the bar caught his attention again before he could reply.
The girl's family seemed to be leaving, and although she looked reluctant to follow, the disappointed look on Peter's face indicated that she probably had to. Her family left in a rush of drunken chants and in the minute she had before following them, Lily saw her lean closer to Peter, taking his hand for a moment before disappearing with a cheerful wave.
Peter stumbled back to the table in somewhat of a happy haze. He held his left hand up proudly, which had the number 17 written on it in what Lily recognised as eyeliner.
"Number of her caravan," Peter beamed proudly. "Says we can do something tomorrow."
"Ha! Not bad mate," Sirius cheered, clapping Peter on the back so hard that he nearly knocked him out of his seat again.
It was a good thing that they'd not stayed up too late, because Peter was an early riser and, despite his best efforts to keep quiet, woke them all up at 7am. It was bad enough in a dorm room, but when they were all crammed into a tiny space it was next to impossible not to wake everyone up. Remus threw his pillow at Peter and burrowed back under the covers, Sirius nearly fell four feet to the floor before remembering that he was in the top bunk, James had to look through all of the very limited storage spaces before finding where he'd drunkenly put his glasses, and Lily beat everyone to the bathroom.
When they were all up and dressed, they were pleased to discover that the clubhouse served breakfast from 8am, and they ordered everything from toast to pancakes to fill them up for their first proper day of holidaying.
Once they began making plans for the day, they found that they all wanted to do different things. Sirius and Remus wanted to head into the nearest town centre, James and Lily wanted to explore the woodland behind the caravan site, and Peter wanted to go see the muggle girl from caravan 17.
They split up, and James got what he'd both hoped for and dreaded: alone time with Lily. He was excruciatingly aware that their dates so far had ended in 1) him punching Snape and Lily yelling at him, and 2) Mary being attacked by a bunch of elitist pureblood Slytherins. While the second one was most definitely not his fault, it wasn't exactly the best track record.
The woods were quiet but not lonely, with sunlight breaking through the leaves of the trees and the shouts of excited children carrying towards them. They talked about their plans for the rest of the summer and Peter's new girlfriend, and after a while James worked up the courage to take Lily's hand.
"Slow down there," Lily joked, "or I might get the wrong idea."
James' free hand jumped self-consciously to his hair, which it was prone to doing almost of its own accord, and his cheeks began to turn red.
"Er, about that," he said. "Are we - you know - a thing?"
Lily raised her eyebrows. "Care to be more specific?"
"I mean - are we a couple? Officially? We just sort of had that date and then you kissed me at quidditch and now we're on holiday together and I don't really know what this - us - is."
He said all of this much too quickly, and then grew steadily more nervous at Lily's contemplative silence. She tugged him over to a fallen tree and sat down on the mossy bark.
"Do you want us to be a couple?" she asked.
"Well - yeah. Of course I do."
"Then I guess that answers that question. You want us to be a couple, I want us to be a couple, so the only sensible course of action is for us to declare this an official relationship."
He nodded. "Okay," he said, his face splitting into a grin. "I guess that makes me your boyfriend."
"I must be mad," Lily said dryly.
Sirius was in the middle of pulling on a cooler t-shirt when Remus poked his head around the doorframe of the caravan.
"Christ Moony, give a bloke a bit of warning would you?" Sirius said, pulling the shirt down over his chest before shrugging on his leather jacket.
Remus frowned at him. "You did not just change your shirt and then put a massive jacket back on over the top. You're going to boil out there."
Sirius contemplated this, biting back a scathing remark before shrugging his shoulders non-committedly.
Remus sighed, before stepping into the caravan and frowning at him some more. "This has to stop."
"Me wearing clothes?"
"You doing," Remus gestured vaguely in front of himself, "whatever it is you're doing. Like you want to say something to me and then you stop. I get that you were doing it for my benefit at first but Sirius, I promise you, I am over the Snape thing. So can you please take off that sodding jacket and walk into town with me without worrying so much?"
"Er..." Sirius said, looking at the frustrated line of Remus' brow. It really was quite hot outside, and the jacket was starting to make him sweat already. "Yeah," he said eventually, taking off the jacket and hanging it over the side of a chair. "Yeah, I can do that."
They ended up hailing down an ice cream van on the way into town just for the sake of cooling themselves down in the heat.
As they walked and ate, Sirius asked Remus how his mum was, whether he was going to come down to see them later in the summer, just how his clothes were managing not to stick to him in the hot weather, and Remus seemed happy to plod along beside him, avoiding the topic of his mother's health, chatting about nothing in particular and pointing now and then to shops he thought looked interesting.
They'd pretty much made it into the centre of the town when Sirius spotted what he instantly declared as 'the perfect shop'. Its front door was painted jet black, and the window display hosted a range of clothes that Remus made sure to tell Sirius would not look as good on him as he thought. Along the top of the display were a line of patterned and brightly coloured motorbike helmets, and Sirius' eyes simply lit up when he caught sight of them.
"It's like fate," he muttered happily to himself, thinking of the new bike back at the Potters', and hurried across the street towards the shop before Remus had a chance to protest.
"Moony, this place is magical," were the first words Remus heard when he followed Sirius inside. He'd already edged around a rack of trousers, flicking the metal chains that hung from their belts.
"Do you think these would suit me?"
"I will remind you again that it is the middle of summer, and ripped jeans will not keep you cool."
"I think I'll try some on."
Sirius darted around the shop for a good half hour, examining fancy lighters, holding clothes up against himself and admiring the helmets on display.
He eventually retreated to the changing rooms to try on the seven pairs of trousers he'd acquired, along with a couple of shirts, and insisted on showing Remus every single pair as he waited impatiently just outside the cubicle.
"You look ridiculous," Remus told him without a hint of uncertainty when he stepped out wearing black leather trousers and a white high collared shirt.
"Your words hurt Moony," Sirius replied, before glancing in the mirror and frowning. "It is a bit much though, isn't it?"
"Oh, you have no idea."
"Right. Well I've gone off this brown thing," he said, holding up a muddy coloured shirt that had zips in places that Remus was sure no one would ever need zips. "Why don't you try it on?"
"You have got to be joking," Remus said, stepping away from Sirius.
"Come on Moony, it's a laugh," he grinned, "and you never know, it might suit you."
"You are never getting that thing over my head. Never."
"Oh really?" Sirius asked, eyes ablaze at the challenge, and Remus didn't think to run until Sirius had already grabbed him around the middle and was attempting to force the brown monstrosity on over the shirt he was already wearing.
The result was a bizarre sort of wrestle that ended with Sirius stretching too far forwards, ripping the leather pants straight down the middle, and Remus falling to the floor in the corner of the changing room, trying to stifle his laugher behind his hands.
"Get out," Sirius whispered urgently, looking in horror at the huge tear in the crotch of the trousers, "go and pick a helmet or something and try to make it look like we didn't just break £40 trousers – how much is that is real money again?"
"I can't choose -" Remus started to protest, but Sirius pushed him out to the other side of the curtain, where he was forced to compose himself and get up off the floor while being stared at suspiciously by a large man in a biker jacket.
He wandered back into the main shop area and busied the girl behind the counter with talk about motorbike helmets, which she seemed happy enough to discuss until Sirius returned from the changing rooms, looking so put together that the idea of him in the horrific outfit nearly gave Remus another fit of the giggles.
"Which do you like?" he asked Remus as he approached the counter, and Remus pointed immediately to the crimson helmet that suitably had a black lion painted on either side of the visor.
Sirius grinned. "Good choice," he said as the shop assistant retrieved the helmet from the shelf and offered it to him to try.
He pulled it down over his head, flicking his hair back where it stuck out the bottom and pushed down the visor.
"What do you think?" he asked, making mock engine noises as he pretended to rev an invisible bike. "Does it suit me?"
"Of course it does," Remus said with a roll of his eyes. "At least if you fall off that death trap you won't crack your skull."
"Always the optimist," Sirius smirked, removing the helmet and putting it back on the counter. Then he turned to the shop girl, smiled a winning smile and said, "I'll take it."