Chapter 25: Paint It Black

Control, or the lack thereof, had always been something that grated at Sirius. When he still lived at home, he had been utterly out of control, living and dying each day by the whims, the mercurial moods of his parents. Even his little acts of rebelliousness, his ways of acting out, weren't him taking control—just a desperate swipe at the thing he craved most, a swing and a miss of the beater's bat.

And at school, although he projected an air of someone who could not have cared less, not even if they tried, it was all in service of pushing back against losing control. The feeling of it slipping through his fingers, that no matter what he did, he couldn't change his own destiny, couldn't change the way the people around him reacted to him; couldn't change the way he swung in and out of people's favour, like some kind of mad weathervane, glorious sunshine one minute and darkest shadows the next.

He wished he had some level of control. Surely it would be an easier existence. But he didn't.

He couldn't control James, his stress levels and sense of responsibility and rapidly shrinking free time. His best friend had been busy enough last year, what with schoolwork and SWEN and quidditch; now, with Head Boy duties thrown in, as well as his unacknowledged quest to spend as much time as he could mooning over Lily Evans, Sirius was lucky if he saw him more than just in passing during lessons.

He couldn't control Remus, who'd been acting oddly since he'd skipped the party last week but was insisting all was fine. As far as Sirius could tell, Remus and Owain were still a couple, although it seemed a couple in name only—Remus was even harder to pin down than James, and he knew that the Ravenclaw had noticed, too. But Sirius could no more get Remus to open up about what the hell was wrong than he could suddenly become best friends with the giant squid, and so he just watched on, helpless and confused.

He couldn't control the slowly creeping sense of danger that seemed to linger in the hallways this year, the way that Lily and Mary felt compelled to check over their shoulders as they walked. He couldn't do a thing about the fact that someone had scrawled 'MUDBLOODS ONLY GOOD FOR ONE THING' in thick, indelible ink in at least one stall in every set of boys toilets in the castle.

This, and the war brewing outside their doors, and the war that had already curdled in the air inside their doors; a stain that only seemed to grow. What could he do?

He didn't like feeling helpless. So, he came up with a plan.

The very fact that he'd planned something, rather than just bowling into it haphazardly and waiting to see where the chess pieces settled themselves, was surely a sign of personal growth. He felt certain that Euphemia and Fleamont would be proud of him—well, proud of the personal progress, if not the plan itself.

Because, he could admit, they might not think that trying to infiltrate a pureblood society with undoubtedly sinister intentions was a good idea.

The Society for the Preservation of Magical Ideals—or 'Spuh-My' as Sirius liked to call it in his head—were obviously a paranoid bunch. Not hard to believe, of course, and he could hardly blame them, given that his aim was to sneak into their ranks and undermine them from within, like a renegade soldier. Or a suave, dashing spy. Like James Bond from their summer cinema trip!

(That was an appealing thought. He already knew how great he looked in a muggle suit.)

He'd managed to find out, through strategic eavesdropping and lurking around the corridors between classes, that they were having a pre-meeting meeting, a sort of social to get to know people before they committed to letting them into the Society proper. Whilst some may have thought this, the extra layer of security in an already close-quarters bunch, would pose a problem, Sirius was ever the optimist. He liked a challenge, and this was a good one. If anyone could talk their way into a society full of inbred twats, it was him.

Spuh-My didn't arrange this social gathering in the dungeons, as he had expected them to, but rather in an ante-room just off the Great Hall, a room he had entirely forgotten existed despite the fact that he must have glanced past it on the map most days. The room was one of those clever Hogwarts specialities, in that it could adjust to the size of the group; a few years ago, he'd been in there for a detention, just him, Pete and Professor Sindha, who preferred not to use his own office for such excursions, and it had felt cosy to the point of being claustrophobic. Now, filled with at least thirty-five people, it had spread itself out, seeming light and airy and spacious, almost like it was a different room entirely.

A few looked over at him as he sidled through the door at a few minutes to eight, although most either didn't notice his entrance, or pretended not to notice. Sirius wasn't bothered either way—he had his sights set on one person in particular, his ticket into this group if he played his cards right: Persephone Selwyn, who was sitting alone on the other side of the room, casting her gaze critically around the space. As he moved, he noticed Calliope Greengrass stood at the centre of a cluster of fawning younger students, watching his progress through the crowd—he paused to grab a goblet of pumpkin juice and a chocolate-dotted pastry from the snack table as he passed, since it seemed mad not to, and dinner had been a long time ago—until he sank into the chair next to Sef; he shot Calliope a cheerful smile (one he knew would probably infuriate her, which was a happy bonus, as far as he was concerned) before he turned his attention to his neighbour.

"Seffy," he said, taking in that effortless aristocratic posture, that slight tilt of the chin that was meant to imply I'm better than you but often looked more like one trying to hold back a sneeze. "Looking as lovely as ever."

Sef seemed to battle, for just a moment, with how to respond, but apparently the temptation to reply rather than simply ignore him was too great. She turned, a single eyebrow arched in cool curiosity. "You flatter me, Black," she replied. Her gaze drifted briefly down his slouched form, taking in his rumpled shirt, discarded tie (wearing Gryffindor colours seemed unwise, this evening). "I'm surprised to see you here."

"Me?" he asked, hand to his chest. "Why's that?"

Sef had always been very good at that look, the one that said I can see right through your hippogriff shit. "Your rather public break from your family, for one," she pointed out. "Not to mention the…company you keep."

Sirius just smiled blandly in return. "Merlin, if you had my mother, you'd have done a runner, too, Sef," he replied, slinging his arm over the back of her chair; she shifted slightly, like she wasn't sure if she should enjoy the contact. "But that was about personalities—it wasn't ideological." He paused thoughtfully. "Unless being an utter bitch is an ideological choice?"

"Hmm." Sef tilted her head a little, taking this in. Sirius thought he might have her, there: she knew his mother, after all. No one who'd met Walburga could mistake the woman for having a remotely winning personality. "And what about your little hexing bouts with the Slytherin boys?" she asked next. "Acting out at them for no good reason."

The way those 'boys' treated muggleborns was a very good reason, in Sirius' opinion, but he merely shrugged. "What can I say? Again, it's a personality clash." He offered her a wink. "You have to admit, Seffy, they are a bunch of bellends."

She pressed her lips together, perhaps to hold back a smile, and Sirius' own smile grew. "I would never use such coarse language."

"My apologies," he smirked. "Didn't mean to upset those upright sensibilities of yours."

"You can keep yourself away from my upright sensibilities, thank you," she teased back, and he grinned; if she was flirting, he'd already won her over. Christ, but it was too easy sometimes.

"Besides, I think those flyers made a good point," he continued, glancing around the room casually. "It's a slippery slope, isn't it? It's one thing to let the impurities into the school system for learning's sake, but before you know it…"

Sef nodded fervently. "Exactly," she agreed. "If they could have just been happy with what they had been given, this would have never needed to go so far." She paused, the hint of a frown passing across her admittedly pretty face. "You were shagging Macdonald last year," she said, voice colder again. Sirius resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. "And you're always palling around with Evans." The emphasis on Lily's name said so much more than just the single word could. It made his stomach turn. "Don't pretend otherwise."

Once again, he shrugged, as if the words he was about to say were nothing more than words, as if they didn't make him want to get up, to flip the tables, to hex the whole fucking lot of them and be done with it. "Mudbloods can be…entertaining," he said, and watched as, predictably enough, the icy glint in Sef's eyes melted away to something closer to satisfaction. "Talented, too. I'm only human."

"Merlin, Black," she sighed, as if he were a small child who'd made a faux pas at the dinner table—her voice was too fond, too knowing, someone who'd spent a lot of time making excuses for the disgusting things people said and did. "You don't know where they've been."

This was a valuable lesson in self-control, because he just smiled in return, pretending he didn't hate her and everything she said, everything she believed in. All this effort would have been for nothing if he couldn't swallow that anger down.

He cast his gaze around the room again instead; an opportunity to breathe, to stay calm. "I thought there'd be more people here," he said lightly. "Shows the brainwashing in effect, doesn't it…"

"Doesn't it," Sef echoed, distaste clear in her voice. "And some of these won't make the cut for the proper meeting besides…"

This was his opportunity. He had to play it just right—too keen, and she'd see through him, see his true intentions. Too laid back and she might not extend an invitation at all.

Luckily, this was the sort of social manoeuvring that growing up in the Black family had trained him for. Nice to know there was some benefit to those years of agony.

"Better to have the screening process, though," he replied. His expression was one of vague disinterest. "A good idea, to have this gathering first."

"I thought so." Another pause, heavy with thought; he could almost hear the cogs turning in her brain. "Do you know the tapestry on the seventh floor, the one where that ridiculous man is trying to teach trolls ballet?"

That wasn't quite what he had expected, but he met her gaze anyway, eyebrows raised. "Barnabas the Barmy? One of my favourite tapestries in the castle."

She smirked knowingly. "The first meeting is in two weeks. The Sunday before the first Hogsmeade visit," she said. "Meet me at the tapestry at seven."

Sirius tried not to look too triumphant. "Are we meeting behind the tapestry?" he asked. "Only I happen to know there's not an awful lot of room back there."

"Yes," Sef raised an eyebrow of her own, "if I recall, you found that out with me." She stood gracefully, smoothing down the fabric of her skirt in a way that he knew was intended to draw his gaze to her arse. Subtlety wasn't one of her strongest suits. "All will become clear in two weeks' time, Black."

And with that suitably mysterious statement, she slipped into the crowd, heading off in the direction of Calliope Greengrass.

Although he was tempted to make a break for it—he had completed his mission, after all—Sirius stayed where he was, knowing how it would look if he didn't stick it out. He didn't have to move from his chair; various students came to sit with him, intrigued enough by the presence of the once-heir to the house of Black to give up the pretence and try to find out what was going on. He switched on the charm, something he could do easily when he chose to, and lingered at the party even once most of the younger ones had gone, scared back to their houses by the threat of curfew. Then only sixth and seventh years remained, admittedly the students who trusted Sirius the least, which meant that he had to dial the charm up several notches. By the time the party had finally wound down, long past midnight, he was exhausted from the effort required to pretend to enjoy himself.

"Sleep well, Sirius," Seffy said, pausing to dot a kiss to his cheek as they parted ways outside the Great Hall. He thought perhaps she'd had something to drink: her eyes seemed more glassy, her cheeks pinker. She almost seemed like a nice, normal person like this. That was the danger, though, wasn't it? The human facade that hid the twisted, poisonous innards. "Lovely to catch up."

"You too, Sef," he replied, and watched her go, arm in arm with Greengrass and just slightly unsteady on her feet.

A pretty bloody awful way to spend his evening. But at least it had paid off.

He made his way, in no great hurry, back up through the winding corridors towards Gryffindor Tower, checking the map as needed to make sure he was avoiding Filch as he went. As he got closer, he noticed a tiny stationary dot in the common room, in one of the chairs by the fire. Evidently his best mate was burning the midnight oil.

He swung his way through the portrait hole, feeling oddly cheerful as he went, despite the late hour and James' already-clear stress levels. His friend was hunched over his parchment, one hand lodged in his hair while the other moved a quill rapidly across the page, and his face was a picture of both concentration and something closer to exhaustion.

"Ah ha!" Sirius said, ambling closer, hands in his pockets. His voice cut easily through the silence, not that he particularly tried to lower his volume. "It's the lesser-spotted Prongs. Didn't realise you were allowed out of that office of yours."

James looked up. "You see me nearly all day every day, mate," he replied wearily, then paused, as if he were finally realising what was going on. "Where've you been? It's—" He cast a glance over to the clock on the mantelpiece, and winced. "—nearly one in the morning."

"Had a meeting, didn't I," Sirius shrugged, adopting the sort of airy look that he knew particularly irritated his friend. Sometimes getting a rise out of James was for fun; sometimes it was to scratch an itch deep inside him which he didn't much want to address. Tonight, he wasn't sure which it was, only that he wanted to do it. "Well, a meeting about a meeting. The hoops you have to jump through for these people—honestly, you'd think they were paranoid about being infiltrated." He smirked. "Anyway. That ran late, and Sef and I were catching up…"

He could see the moment of realisation dawn on James' face; the boy dropped his quill, pushing to his feet. "You're not saying you went to—"

"The SPMI, as we call it?" Sirius smiled benevolently. "I did. Fascinating stuff, actually."

"Fucking hell, Padfoot," James frowned. "What on earth possessed you to—"

"Some of us aren't quite as content to sit around and do fuck all," Sirius replied with a shrug. "Somebody has to act."

"This isn't—" James' voice was getting louder, his frustration clear; he held his body stiffly, every muscle tense, like he was holding himself back from shaking sense into Sirius with every ounce of control he possessed. "It's a bloody miracle they even let you in the door, Pads, how long do you think it'll be before they twig that you're not interested in the supremacy of purebloods? And then what will they do to you?"

Sirius scoffed. "Those pricks couldn't work it out even if I spelled it out for them, mate."

"Just because their beliefs are reprehensible, doesn't mean they're stupid," James retorted angrily. "This is reckless and you know it! And it won't even be you or me who gets the worst of the fallout, will it—"

"Oh, don't start the martyr act," Sirius interrupted. His own voice was louder now, too, his own frustration and irritation bubbling up inside him, relentless and unstoppable. What little control he'd found that evening, slipping through his fingers. "Just because you're neutered now, all fucking responsible and sensible—"

"Growing up, you mean?" James spat. "Realising that other people are affected by the stupid things I choose to do when I don't think it through? Noticing that other people are the ones who suffer when we go all wand-happy and—"

He stopped short, not because Sirius had interrupted (which he was building up to, still recovering from the sting of 'growing up' being thrown at him like it was the blade of a knife) but because his gaze had landed on something just behind Sirius. Without turning around, Sirius could guess what—or who—he had seen. He clenched his jaw, trying to draw in a calming breath.

"Wha's going on?" came the sleepy voice he'd expected, and he finally turned to see Lily standing at the bottom of the staircases. She was swamped in a fluffy white dressing gown, pyjama bottoms with patterns of rainbows on, for some reason, sticking out the bottom and almost drowning her bare feet. Given the fact that her hair looked as if she'd just been pulled through a hedge backwards, Sirius guessed that she'd only just woken up.

James cleared his throat, his voice softening in a way that, somehow, irritated Sirius even more. "Nothing," he replied, looking sheepish. "Sorry."

Sirius snorted humourlessly. Sometimes it was quite touching, how openly James cared for Lily. Other times, it was just irritating—predictable and frustrating and so completely boring. "Careful, mate," he muttered in his friend's direction. "Your raging hard-on's showing."

James shot him a glare, before looking back at Lily. "Sorry," he said again. "Did we wake you…?"

Lily glanced between the two of them, eyebrows raised keenly despite the sleepy, dazed look in her eyes. "One of the first years came knocking on the dorm door, crying her eyes out because she said it sounded like someone was having a duel down here."

Sirius rolled his eyes as dramatically as he could. "Crying, for fuck's sake—this girl needs to get a bloody grip."

"Maybe it's not the eleven-year-old trying to sleep who needs to get a grip," Lily replied evenly, "but the two seventh years shouting at each other in the middle of the night." She cast James a look. "One of whom is the Head Boy, of all people."

James' look of shame only served to irritate Sirius further. "Ah, well, Merlin forbid that the sainted Head Boy be seen to express any emotions, eh?"

James rolled his eyes. "We're finished," he told Lily firmly. "Sirius is going to bed, and I've nearly finished this essay."

Sirius threw up a lazy salute. "Sir, yes sir," he muttered, making his way to the stairs. "Let me know what my act of penance should be, Evans, I'll be sure to get right on it in the morning."

As he trudged up the stairs, wondering if he was now too grumpy to even sleep, he heard the distinct murmurs of the two people left behind in the common room.

"—don't know what's got into him lately…"

Lily's reply was gentle, almost inaudible; he paused on the steps to strain to hear. "Everyone's a bit on edge. Why don't you get some sleep, too—you need to rest…"

On edge was a good way to describe it. Lily had always been good at judging a situation, at reading people's emotions. And Sirius knew that James was on edge, too, probably more so even than he himself was; he knew, intellectually, that he was under a lot of pressure, had plenty of things to try and keep on top of.

Of course, that didn't make any of it less annoying. Patronising. Frustrating.

Grow up. With those words echoing round his head, Sirius set his face in a scowl, and pushed on the rest of the way up to the dorm.

Why don't you grow up, you four-eyed prick, he thought crossly as he lay in bed.

Yeah. He was going to struggle to get to sleep.

It was cold, rain was pattering against the windowpane, and James was—irritatingly—making a good point..

"You do realise," James was saying, a stern look on his face that really didn't suit him, "that while you're pretending to be a blood purist prick, you can't really hang out with us outside the tower."

Sirius rolled his eyes. He had not, in fact, thought about that, not that he was about to admit as much to his friend. But it had barely been eight hours since their discussion in the common room (discussion being the sort of euphemistic phrasing that pureblood pricks liked to use—when in Rome, etcetera), he was still half asleep and only half dressed, and not much in the mood to be scolded.

"Blood purist prick?" Peter piped up from his bed, where he was trying to knot his tie; it kept coming up too short, and he was getting more frustrated with each attempt—very entertaining for Sirius, in truth. "Are you in bed with the Dark Lord now, Pads?"

Once again, Sirius rolled his eyes. It was becoming a habit. "I don't believe you were part of this conversation, Pete," he replied airily.

"Probably shouldn't have it at top volume from opposite ends of the dormitory, then," Peter said, quite fairly.

"So are you just going to pretend you don't like us?" James carried on, pausing in front of the mirror to try and tame his hair. A losing battle if ever there was one. "I'm a loud and proud blood traitor, after all, and these two are half-bloods—"

"Feel free to pretend not to be my friend," Peter offered. "I like an acting opportunity. What shall we have fallen out about? You going after Iris?"

Sirius frowned. "What are you—surely we've fallen out about my pureblood-prick agenda, Wormtail."

"Oh," Peter nodded, looking a bit disappointed. "Right, of course."

"Did you…want me to go after Iris?" Sirius asked curiously.

"I just think you'll find it difficult," James barrelled on, having given up on his hair. "How're you going to cope without our attention all day?"

At some point, Remus had emerged from the bathroom, and at James' words, let out a derisive snort.

Another good point from James, which was why Sirius was choosing to ignore him. "Something to add, Moony?" he asked, if only to get the boy to bloody look at him. It didn't work.

"Not a thing," Remus replied, moving to grab his satchel from the end of his bed. "Breakfast is calling, don't you think?"

He was gone before Sirius could say anything else, and Pete, finally having succeeded with his tie, made haste to follow him; nothing could get between that lad and his bacon sandwich. Sirius glanced over towards James, who still looked far too serious for this time of the day, and raised an eyebrow. James just shrugged.

"He hasn't told me," James replied. Sometimes it was annoying that James could read his mind; sometimes it was helpful. He couldn't decide which this was. "Maybe it's him and Ollerton. They still haven't broken up."

Somehow, Sirius suspected there was more to it than just that—but he could hope, couldn't he, when he had nothing else. Maybe their friend was just being weird and distant and grumpy because he was anxious about having to dump his boyfriend. Maybe that was all it was.

"Anyway," James sighed. He looked tired, Sirius realised. Even more so than he had the night before. "I 'spose we shouldn't walk down together, eh?"

Sirius swallowed against the odd lump in his throat. "'Spose not," he agreed, and gestured to the door. "You go on, I'll be down in a bit."

James nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets before he left the room, head down.

Maybe Sirius hadn't thought through his plan to infiltrate Spuh-My; maybe it had been a bit of a last-minute decision. Maybe he would quickly regret it, given he hadn't realised it meant choosing to ostracise himself from all his mates. It was Classic Him, wasn't it—act first, think later? At least he was sticking with his strengths.

He left a five minute gap before he wandered down to breakfast, and parked himself at the end of the Gryffindor table, away from his friends and, well, everyone else in his house. It was lonely, unsurprisingly, but he knew that it had caught the attention of some of the people who were at the gathering the night before. Sef Selwyn, for one, seated in a cluster of her suck-up Slytherin friends, was unsubtly staring over at him, murmuring to the girl next to her. That was something, at least: it would be even more of a waste if he wrecked the whole plan already.

He was just starting to wonder if he should go over there, right into the belly of the beast—it would mean abandoning his bacon and fried egg sandwich, something he wasn't sure he would be willing to do, even if it was for a good cause—when suddenly his view of the Slytherin table was blocked, and he glanced up to find Owain, standing sheepishly on the other side of the table, hands in his pockets.

He wasn't sure what to say. "Alright, Ollerton?"

Owain paused, looking down the table towards the area where Remus sat with James, Peter, Lily and the rest. "Yeah…you?"

"There's bacon," he replied, as if there were nothing else of import to discuss. "What more could a fellow ask for?"

"True," Owain agreed hesitantly; Sirius watched him, could almost see the way his thoughts were processing written across his face. The bloke was fairly transparent.

Sure enough, Owain swung himself onto the bench opposite him, adjusting the angle of the cutlery that lay to his right, almost as if he couldn't stop himself from doing it. "Have you lot…fallen out?" he asked. His voice had an edge to it, like he was holding something back. "Don't think I've seen you eating on your own for a long time…"

True. Probably not since the Whomping Willow incident, and before then, the very start of first year, before he'd found his feet. Found his friends.

He didn't suit being alone. He never had.

But he wasn't about to launch into a monologue about all that at this time of the morning. He just offered a shrug. "Wanted a bit of peace."

Owain nodded uncertainly. Another pause; given what followed, Sirius guessed he was gathering his courage. "Is something up with Remus? He's been…" He couldn't seem to find the word—he glanced back down the table again, to where Remus was studiously pretending not to have seen the two of them. "Distant."

For once, Sirius wasn't lying when he replied, "No idea, mate." He took a swig of his orange juice. "He has been distant, but I've got no clue why."

Owain's frown only deepened. "I don't understand it," he sighed. "Everything was fine last year, and then summer came along and—"

Everyone had their limits, and this was one of his. He couldn't sit here and listen, offer counsel. It just wasn't going to happen, not at the moment. "Look, mate, I wish I could help." He didn't. He was, shamefully, glad that he couldn't. "But there's only one person who can actually give you answers, and it isn't me."

A sigh. "No, you're right," Owain nodded. "I'm not this insecure idiot person, I can bloody well talk to my boyfriend." This certainty was undercut by his worried expression, and the word, murmured a moment later, "right?"

"Right," Sirius agreed. "Bon chance, as they say—fortune favours the bold, and so on."

Owain stood up, his gaze once more drifting down the table to Remus. He paused. "Later, though," he said, with a look of slight embarrassment. "Best not to breach tricky topics before double Arithmancy."

"If you say so," Sirius nodded.

"Thanks." Owain tore his eyes from his boyfriend, flashing Sirius an awkward smile. "See you later."

He glanced back down at his plate: the yolk of his fried egg had congealed. Maybe he should've just skipped breakfast altogether.

Four days later, and the process of having to avoid his friends hadn't become any easier. Frankly, he was bored: he sat alone in lessons (well, with other students, but they weren't his people), sat alone at meals. He knew it was working; Calliope Greengrass had joined him as he ploughed through his second serving of apple crumble the night before, making light and pleasant conversation about the weather, and quidditch, and the news that her grandfather, from his seat on the Wizengamot, was going to bring in legislation that would make it harder for muggleborns to use government-funded enterprises—school, hospitals…

Naturally, he had to look and sound as if he thought this was a good idea, something that was much needed, and not an abhorrent load of purist bullshit designed to marginalise people further and whip up fear and anger from all corners. Luckily, he'd had eleven years of practice covering up the truth of his feelings, like the time, aged ten, when he'd had to pretend he didn't care that Walburga had left him locked in the cellar for a day and a half as punishment for some minor misdemeanour. He'd come out of the darkness, his expression bored and unimpressed, as if his stomach wasn't aching with hunger, his eyes struggling to adjust back to the brightness of the house.

Compared to that, along with the other many indignities of his upbringing, this was nothing.

It was the end of the week, and he'd taken refuge in the library. Not his usual idea of somewhere to hide away, but he felt he needed to be visible for a while longer and not just disappear back to Gryffindor. He'd parked himself at a table near a window, thrown open a few books to ensure the illusion of scholarly pursuits, and had promptly started doodling on his parchment.

A fine idea, in theory, but in practice it soon fell apart. He had to wonder if he was sitting under a spotlight of some kind. Or maybe he looked like someone desperate for company (a prospect he didn't want to consider), because it was only a matter of minutes before Pete turned up, apparently having forgotten that, to the Hogwarts populace at large, they were supposed to have fallen out.

"Merlin's beard, am I glad to see you," the boy sighed as he sank into the chair across from Sirius. "This essay for Magical Creatures is a slow and painful form of torture. Do you know anything about the mating habits of thestrals?"

Sirius blinked. "...what made you think I would, Pete?"

"Well, you know," he gestured vaguely, glancing around them as if an answer might present itself, fully formed. "You're proper clever, aren't you. You seem to have all sorts of random bits of general knowledge tucked away in your brain." He shot Sirius a pained look. "All I seem to have tucked away is useless trivia about the Chesterfield Challengers." A pause. "And unicorns. I know a lot about unicorns."

This was taking the form of one of those conversations that rambled here and there, covering a lot of ground and usually being enormous fun along the way—Pete could always be relied upon for a lively chat about anything that crossed one's mind. Shame it didn't fit into Sirius' current, pureblood-madman aesthetic.

"Pete," Sirius lowered his voice, shooting a quick look to his left and right, just to be sure. "We're not mates outside of the tower, remember?"

For a second, Pete looked confused—his mind probably still on those thestrals—before realisation finally struck. "Oh, bugger," he cringed. "Sorry, I forgot—I'd asked Moony for some help, but he was in a grump again, and I can't find James—"

None of this was surprising, but that didn't make it any less vexing. He was supposed to be getting better at handling his frustrations, too, but his mates didn't seem to want to make it easy for him. "When isn't Remus in a grump lately," Sirius wondered, deciding not to think it was rather like the pot calling the kettle black. He was a bloody delight in comparison to Moony at the moment.

Pete sighed, scratching idly at his nose. "I don't know what it was all about. I was just saying how great it is that you and Mary are still friendly despite breaking up and he got really arsey…"

Sirius frowned, and tried to ignore the way his stomach seemed to have dropped. "Arsey how…?"

"I dunno," Peter shrugged, standing up. "It was weird. He went back to his essay notes and told me to find James." He glanced at his watch. "Who's probably doing something Head-ish, isn't he? I think it's time to give up on this essay for today."

"Might be," Sirius agreed, although his mind was still stuck on Remus' odd reaction. Did he…? He couldn't know… "Sorry, mate."

Peter smiled amiably. "No worries, Pads. Sorry for not ignoring you."

Sirius managed a short laugh, watching as his friend wandered away again. He knew, logically, that the solution to most of this churning, uncomfortable feeling that sat stagnating in his guts was to talk to Remus. A significant part of him wanted to march up to the tower now, to wrest the stubborn sod's attention away from his work and do whatever it took to get him to bloody well speak. If shouting was what it took, fine, he'd be okay with shouting. Sometimes a good shout could clear the sinuses; you felt years younger after, your skin was clearer, colours more vibrant. Similar to a good fight, a few punches, but Sirius wasn't sure that would help this time—not to mention the shellacking he'd get from McGonagall if he got into a fight, even if it was a fight with the best of intentions and, frankly, a really good reason behind it.

Maybe he'd build up to a good shout, a quick slanging match which could clear the decks for them both. Not today, though—it was a Friday, after all, and Fridays weren't for arguing. Perhaps not this weekend, either; Saturdays were sacrosanct, a whole blissful day away from classes again, and Sundays, well, it would be an insult to the Christians in their house if they shouted the place down on a Sunday. (He wasn't sure if anyone was a Christian in Gryffindor, but given the number of muggleborns, it stood to reason that there would be at least one. Who was he to insult even one person?)

Next week it was, then, and maybe mid-week, just to be clear of the start-of-the-week blues. He nodded, pleased with himself for this mature and measured approach to problem solving, and settled back into his busy schedule of doodling.

In fact, the doodling got a bit dull after a while, and so he turned his focus—reluctantly, and glad that no one was around to see—to his Potions textbook. Slughorn had set them all a stinker of an essay, the sort of thing that made the likes of Evans and Snape cream their pants but made the rest of them wish they'd dropped the subject after OWLs like a sensible person would've. It wasn't an area of potioneering that particularly interested Sirius, being far more interested in the practical side, and so he knew that it wouldn't take much to distract him from this reading.

He was right, and all it took were two familiar voices idling their way down one of the aisles of books nearby.

"—can finish them up later, if you like," Lily was saying as they came into sight; James gestured to the nearest table, and they started to settle at it, spreading books and parchment. "It won't take me too long."

"Don't be daft," James replied, slouching into the chair next to hers. Sirius watched as he deposited the books he'd been carrying in front of her—apparently they weren't his. The chivalrous idiot. "We can get it done in half the time if we do it together."

The urge to call out 'sounds like innuendo to me' was overwhelming, but somehow, he resisted. (Again, he marvelled at his own personal growth.) He forced his gaze back down to his parchment, trying to tune them out. It wasn't like he missed them; he saw them enough in the common room, and James in their dorm. Still, he could admit to himself that it wasn't quite the same as what he was used to, and maybe it didn't make him too much of a sentimental fool if he had a bit of a pang every now and then, did it?

And then he glanced over again, and his eyes almost rolled out of his head.

Lily had reached out, almost idly, brushing a single finger just below James' left eye; she held up said finger, saying, softly, "eye lash!"

They both stilled, staring at each other in similarly stunned fashion—him, probably, that it had happened, and her, probably, that she had done it at all.

Bloody hell. The sooner those two just snogged, the better. This constant breathless flirting was exhausting.

"Um," Lily said, her cheeks turning pink. She looked like she'd quite like to hide among the books. Or disappear altogether. "Sorry. I just—"

"Oh," James blinked owlishly behind his glasses. "No, you're fine—nothing to be—"

"Jesus Christ have mercy," Sirius muttered (apparently loud enough to draw their attention, because they both looked round, and looked even more embarrassed that there was a witness to this atrocity). He stood up, making messy work of gathering up his parchment, quill and books; maybe he'd missed them, but not enough to sit there and witness them awkwardly stutter their way through a conversation. "Don't you two have an office, where you don't bother anyone else?"

James just raised an eyebrow, still, it seemed, in a bit of a daze from Lily's touch; Lily herself, on the other hand, seemed to have recovered her composure, merely replying, "piss off, Black."

Sirius turned to leave the library, and found Sef Selwyn there, watching on in quiet disapproval. For a moment, he wondered if it was him she disapproved of—she'd seen him interacting with those two, after all. A part of him almost hoped that it was all over, that she was onto him—at least he'd be able to bloody well talk to his mates in public again. But then she said, her voice clear and certainly loud enough to carry over to James and Lily's table, "It's such a pity the depths this school has stooped to in finding its Head students, isn't it?"

Sirius swallowed, not daring to look back at his friends; instead, he offered Sef his arm, which she took with a cloying smile. "It is," he agreed, and he sounded like he believed it. "C'mon, let me walk you back to the dungeons."

It was probably for the best that he couldn't turn around and look back at the scene he was leaving behind. The guilt sat heavily enough in his throat as it was.

He'd been able to offer an apology (of sorts) to James that evening, who took it with more grace than Sirius had been expecting. "Look, I don't agree with what you're doing," he'd sighed heavily. "But since you're doing it anyway, I understand there are ways you have to be seen."

Altogether quite reasonable, just the ticket, really, and then they'd got sidetracked talking about the upcoming quidditch trials, and then sidetracked again when Pete arrived, still complaining about thestrals. Remus hadn't shown his face all evening, and still hadn't appeared by the time they went to bed, but Sirius had decided he wasn't going to let it bother him. Easy as that.

The next morning, he intended to catch up with Lily in the common room before they ventured down for breakfast, but she was already gone by the time he made his way, yawning widely, down the dormitory stairs. In the Great Hall, he spotted her engrossed in conversation with Marlene, but he could hardly wander over and join them, offer his apologies here—not when Sef had watched him enter, given him a coy wave and a smile.

Ugh. Had she been this nauseating in fifth year?

(Probably. It was impressive what a deep-seated urge to piss off his mother could blind him to.)

Lily left the Hall on her own, and so Sirius gave it a few minutes before getting up to follow her. The things Sef had said yesterday, the way he'd had to play along—it was going to eat at him all day until he managed to talk to Lily. He knew it wasn't her job to unburden him of his guilt, but still, he wanted to say he was sorry. That seemed like the very least he could do.

It was luck that he'd decided to grab the map on his way down to breakfast that morning, and further luck that he thought to check it before working on the assumption that she'd just head back to the Tower. Because she wasn't halfway back to Gryffindor: in fact, she was on the third floor, the dot labelled 'Lily Evans' drifting closer to the Heads' office.

At least this gave him a good chance of catching up. He picked up his pace as he ascended the stairs, hopping off at the third floor, glad no one else seemed to be around. He was just wondering how he would get into the Heads' office—did one knock on a portrait? He'd not thought about it before—when he rounded a corner and the answer presented itself. No need to knock. Lily was standing in the corridor, something clutched in her hand, her head bowed.

"Ah, good, Evans, just the girl I was looking for," he said cheerfully, ambling closer. "I wanted to apologise for what happened in the—"

He'd reached her side. She hadn't looked up at him yet, just continued to stare down at what turned out to be a scrap of parchment in her hand.

"—library, and…" He trailed off; his gaze caught on the thick black ink. "...what's that?"

At last, Lily looked up. Her face was empty of all expression, but she seemed a little bit pale. He wasn't sure if he was just imagining that. "I…it was spellotaped to the frame of the painting," she replied. Something in her tone made his blood run cold.

Sirius frowned, a sense of foreboding building inside him as he leaned closer to read over her shoulder. The words were scrawled in spiky print, the sort of handwriting that reeked of anger, of hatred.

HOW DID THE MUDBLOOD WHORE GET TO BE HEAD GIRL? SHE USED HER FILTHY MUDBLOOD CU—

"What the fuck," he hissed, reaching for the parchment—but Lily, who had been so still, statue-like, frozen, almost, until that point, suddenly found the momentum, and crumpled the paper easily in her hands. "Lily, that's—"

"Just some bitter, angry twat," Lily finished for him. Her voice wasn't shaking; she sounded strong, somehow, although when he looked closer, he could see she was trembling, just slightly. "I don't need to give them any more space in my head than they've already got."

His frown only deepened. "You should tell—"

"No one will be able to do anything," she cut him off again. Weary. That was how she sounded, he realised. Exhausted by it all. "So what's the point?"

"But—tell James, at least," he argued. "He'd want to know."

He could see her wrestling with this idea; maybe she could see the benefit of talking to James, of sharing the weight of this. But if she did, it didn't win out in whatever battle was going on in her mind. "No. He'll only worry, and he's stressed enough as it is."

"Lily," Sirius said, useless and empty. What could he say that would help make this better? Once more, out of control. "You don't have to deal with this shit on your own, you know."

She met his gaze again, and forced up a small smile. It was awful. "I know."

No control. And he knew he wasn't the only one battling against that feeling; he couldn't pretend that he was. Joining Spuh-My was supposed to help him feel like he was doing something, like he was helping in whatever small way he could—finding out what their agenda was, taking them down from within.

But here, meeting Lily's strained gaze… it felt like a drop in the ocean.

Something had to change.