Chapter 21: Games Afoot

James, Sirius, and Peter made sure the coast was clear as they quickly scurried into the Room of Requirement and looked around to see what the room had provided for them. It resembled essentially an empty classroom, if not a little smaller than usual. It had a circular table in the middle with four chairs that they walked over to as a group to sit down.

"Huh, I wonder why it thought we needed four chairs…" James scratched his chin. Sirius pulled out his chair roughly and reclined before giving him a shrug in reply. Peter sat down quickly, leaning forward in anticipation. "Anyway, this is where we start, boys." James reached into his pocket and pulled out a small cardboard box.

"D'you really think it'll work? For a whole month?" Peter asked worriedly.

"Stop your fretting, Pete. You're gonna give yourself a migraine," Sirius said with a chuckle and more good humor than he usually did. His excitement to start this process was overwhelming every other anticipation he had at the moment. "We've got nothing to lose if we try."

Peter nodded and his facial expression indicated he was only slightly reassured, but Sirius glossed over it knowing he just needed to jump in feet first to let the worries fall by the wayside. James set the box in the middle of the table and then pulled out the piece of parchment they had kept their notes on for the entire plan. All three heads leaned forward to look over it once again.

"So today is day zero with the leaves under our tongues," James started with his finger at the top of his notes. "We have the cover-up already set up, we need to try and keep it going as long as we can but today before we leave here we can practice and see how well we can talk with it under our tongues. If it's easier than we expected maybe we don't have to…"

Sirius was really hoping that was going to be the case. While he was eager to start, he wasn't exactly excited to be a mute for an entire month straight. Peter gulped audibly as James opened the nondescript little box and passed out a leaf to each of them. He glanced back down at the notes while Sirius and Peter examined the leaves in their hands.

"Once we get to midnight on day thirty, we can come back in here and do the incantation to maybe find out what our animagi forms will be."

"Which will be exciting," Sirius interjected, and James nodded eagerly.

"And then, if that incantation works, we just have to practice the meditation and the spell over and over until we can do the transformation! If we come here every other day to practice, it should be maybe only a few weeks until one of us gets it. And from there that person will help the other two to figure it out."

"Wanna wager who that will be?" Sirius jeered.

"Winner buys ice cream for the other two at Florescue's this summer," James stuck his hand out and Sirius met the challenge with a wide smirk and a firm handshake.

"You're so on, mate."

Peter burst their bubble with a short sentence punctuated with a nervous laugh. "Loser is the one who gets called out for being sketchy by Ethee first."

Sirius looked downcast momentarily for the first time since they'd set out this morning with the plan to start their animagus process. James furrowed his black eyebrows for the hundredth time as he considered any way for them to avoid that sort of conflict. He caught the air of nerves his best friend was trying to hide behind a façade of nonchalance.

"That's why we set up the cover-up, it's the best we can do and just hope if she catches on in the ether she doesn't try to pin us down over it." Sirius barked out one loud, sharp laugh at James' wording but agreed nonetheless.

"If she catches on, worst case is we clue her in and swear her to secrecy," he shrugged.

"Precisely," James nodded, "Now let's get this started before these things wilt." James held up his leaf to inspect it one last time before the group of them looked solemnly at each other and popped the leaves under their tongues.

The taste was a weird mingling of earthy bitterness that puckered Peter's face and caused Sirius and James to grimace momentarily. It was expected based on what they had read but didn't make it any more pleasant. Sirius shook his head back and forth as the flavor overpowered him for a second and Peter suppressed a cough. After the initial wave of flavor, it ebbed and they just had to wrestle with the thing in their mouths to keep it in place while they got used to the feeling of it. James was the first to attempt to speak.

"I fink I got it… hol' on wait…" He shuffled his tongue around his mouth and pouted after half a minute. "I'mna sure fis is go'a work if we are tawkin'…" His speech was so garbled Sirius had to clap a hand over his mouth to stop himself from bursting out in laughter.

"-o shit, Sher-ock," Sirius mumbled back, and the boys were reduced to muffled hysterics.

"How are we sh-upposed to eat?" Peter asked.

"Shw-o-wee," James replied through chuckles.

After another 15 minutes of clowning around with their muffled speech, the boys decided to use hand signals to indicate to each other during their month of silence. They agreed on a few key signals just to get started and then headed out of the Room of Requirement together in excited silence. They bounced all the way to the Great Hall and found Remus sitting with Lily and Mary discussing some Potion's paper they had finished earlier.

"I'll never understand how it is you get such good marks in Potions and Slughorn still hasn't invited you to one of his parties! It hardly makes sense, Rem." Lily looked at him with earnest confusion. Remus avoided her gaze, knowing precisely why Professor Slughorn didn't see any potential worth cultivating in him despite his above-average grades.

"It takes more than good grades to have potential, Lil," he mumbled back as Sirius, James, and Peter all sat down next to him in silence. Lily furrowed her brow at Remus' dismissal of his potential. She usually didn't stick around when the rest of the Marauders showed up to sit with Remus, but this time she just turned to Mary and spoke to her like she was unbothered by their proximity. Remus turned to greet his unusually quiet group of friends, "I was starting to wonder where you lot had gotten off to. Didn't burn down the greenhouses or anything, I hope?"

Peter scoffed and James immediately looked up at him with surprise and pointed his finger at him. Peter held his hands up in the air and shook his head violently. James mouthed back, "Close!"

Remus scowled at the group as he started to piece together what he thought they were doing. Sirius found the expression rather funny but was determined to keep up the act, so he held back his chuckle. Remus would hopefully conclude that they had restarted their quiet game, and not that they were trying to keep a secret as big as burning down school property from him. Although he had to admit it wasn't a completely far-fetched possibility. Just as Remus was opening his mouth to either fall into their trap or accuse them of arson, Theia walked up to greet Lily.

"Hey, Lils! Hey Mary! Are you ready? I've got the book nook set up." She brought her eyes up to the group of boys and smiled at them. Peter waved excitedly at her, and after a second of receiving no greeting from them one of her eyebrows arched up in confusion.

"Hey Theia," Remus replied. Sirius realized Remus was going to try and bait him into talking to her when he lifted his stern gaze from his face up to hers with a coy smile. "Divination practice tonight, I heard? Are you girls going to try and divine your soulmates from palm reading?"

Lily laughed while Mary blushed at the idea, both of them knowing he was teasing them about the silliness that Divination practice could devolve into. Theia just smirked back, making Sirius wonder if she could sense something was afoot through their auras. The topic of soulmates was becoming a theme between Theia and Remus, if he hadn't overheard the end of their last conversation about it through the bathroom door, he'd be more than slightly suspicious of the recurrence.

"Oh no, we are saving that for after O.W.L.'s are done, wouldn't want to distract ourselves during exams with some new Loverboy."

Sirius felt his heart skip and a dangerous smirk spread across his face. He bit back the retort he was dying to make when James coughed uncomfortably and clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle it. She had clearly noticed Remus was trying to goad him into saying something sly and was trying to up the ante! He wasn't sure why her attempt to goad them felt specifically directed at him. Maybe he was just being hopeful.

"Pffft!" Lily chuckled while she stood up and Mary let out a tinkling laugh. Remus quirked a brow at Sirius at the same time that he felt Theia's amused gaze land on the side of his face.

"This again?" She asked the group with a mischievous little smirk lighting up her features.

"Another bloody quiet game?" Remus let out an exasperated sigh while he rolled his eyes. Peter nodded eagerly while Theia chuckled at Remus.

"At least you'll get some peace and quiet tonight, Rem," she said with a sly wink and Sirius' eyes flew to Remus' face to catch his reaction to the gesture. There was nothing noteworthy on his face or reflecting in his amber eyes that he could discern. "For at least 20 more minutes, perhaps." She looked at James and then at him and stuck her tongue out at them. Damn that coy witch! He silently laughed inside his head while he wrinkled his nose cheekily at her. With that, she turned away flanked by Lily and Mary.

This is going to be harder than I thought… Sirius admitted to himself.

The next three weeks were agonizingly slow. The first week of the fake quiet game seemed to amuse Remus, the second week seemed to bore him, and the third… He was clearly getting irritated. The fact that not a single one of them had broken their silence was a feat in and of itself worth being proud of. But the fact that all three had kept the leaves under their tongue this whole time, even with eating, sleeping, and brushing their teeth, they were all eagerly looking ahead to the end of their last week of silence so they could celebrate. Not to mention, make it up to Remus. He had taken it upon himself to help them speak, whether it be in class by offering a cover of laryngitis or helping them get into Gryffindor Tower. The only bonus that Sirius could think of after spending three weeks without a meaningful syllable passing through his lips, was that it had given him a very ample opportunity to practice nonverbal magic. He was getting the hang of several charms now and was hoping that with more practice he might be ahead of the curve for the practice in 7th year for nonverbal defense spells.

Now Remus was seated with him and Peter in the library while James was out at Quidditch practice. Theia, Lily, and Harper were seated at the adjacent table, and Remus was talking lowly to the group of girls occasionally about the assignments they were working on, while he and Peter kept their focus on their papers. The low talking suddenly paused when two figures walked up to the table of girls.

"'Ello"

"Hi" The two students that had approached the table had Hufflepuff colors on, and Sirius recognized them vaguely. They weren't in their year, but perhaps the year ahead or behind. They were both tall and thin boys, one was sandy-haired and fair with freckles, the other had cropped dark brown curly hair and a Mediterranean skin tone. The girls looked up with some surprise, friendly curiosity written plainly across their faces.

"You're Theia Nyx?" The dark-featured one asked. She looked up at him and replied with a quiet nod of her head. Sirius was half amused with her for not giving the guy much to work with. The longer she stayed silent, the faster he'd have to get to the point. "My name's Matthaios Andino," he replied quickly.

"And I'm Luke Bastion," the other boy said looking only at Lily's unsure face.

"It's nice to meet you," Theia replied in a warm but not very eager manner. "How can we help you?"

"Are you Greek?" Matthaios asked with a look of very hopeful anticipation written plainly across his face.

"Distantly," Theia answered flatly but kept a small smile on her face.

"Your name is very Greek. I figured you must have some Grecian blood in you."

"Yes, my name is probably the most Grecian thing about me at this point. I'm a bit of a European mutt, actually. My family seemed to jump around the continent over the millennia until the late nineteenth century when the line that bore me moved to America."

Of course she'd know her lineage, Sirius thought to himself while he watched Theia's nonchalant expression as she rattled off her rather nonspecific family history. Does she really not know what this bloke's getting at?

"But yes, I do have some Greek ancestry," she continued, "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I am." Matthaios' hand landed on his chest as it swelled with evident pride in his heritage. His smirk was coy as if he had gotten her to admit to something that actually mattered. "I was wondering—"

"We," Luke interjected, and Matthaios blinked and nodded like he had forgotten all about his friend who was staring at an increasingly red-hued Lily.

"Yes, sorry, we were wondering if you'd—Lily and you—would like to go out for a picnic together?"

"A picnic?" The smile spreading across Theia's face betrayed an undertone of embarrassment that anyone who didn't know her well would probably miss. He just couldn't look away from her face while a fire pitted a hole in his chest. He could almost feel her eyes resisting looking at him as he stared at her.

"In January?" Lily asked.

"We can enchant an area of one of the courtyards or the lawn, and my mitéra sent me a gift basket of all the best Greek food from home."

"Umm…" Theia looked quizzically at Lily for a second and let out a nervous chuckle while she stalled. He could see the heat running up her neck as she grasped for an answer. She had clearly been blindsided and Sirius was floored this prat had the audacity to ask her out while she sat so close to them! He kicked himself repeatedly in his head, they were taking advantage of their quiet game! Worse yet, they didn't consider him a threat and he clamped his hands roughly on the arms of the chair he sat perfectly still in when he realized he was powerless to prove them wrong at the moment. He dragged his gaze away from Theia just as her gaze flitted momentarily to him. If she could feel his aura from this far away, she was hiding it well as she turned back toward Lily again. Remus was surreptitiously glancing at him as well, and if it hadn't been for the three weeks of practice at remaining silent, he wouldn't have been able to contain himself. The few seconds that had ticked by as Theia stalled for an answer concluded with a shrug and a head shake. "Sure." Lily followed suit with a very brief nod.

"I like Greek food, I'm down," she said, and the kid named Luke lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Wonderful, let's say Saturday at 3 o'clock?" Matthaios asked with a victorious grin on his face. He reached down and picked up one of Theia's hands from the table. Her face turned from reserved amusement to surprise as her eyebrows knit closer together.

"Uhh… yeah. 3 o'clock…" He planted a kiss on the back of her hand as she shrunk back from him. After the Hufflepuffs turned and walked away from the group, Remus leaned back in his chair, staring intently at Sirius' stony face. He refused to look up at anyone, lest he catch Theia's dark eyes again. He wouldn't be able to stand it if he saw remorse or guilt… or worse, accusation.

This bloody fucking quiet game… his mind raced alongside his heart rate. First the dance, now this… she's going to think… what would I have said anyway? If it hadn't been for this stupid fucking game he never would have had the gall… FUCK!

He pushed his chair back quickly causing a loud squeal of the wood legs against the stone floor. The sudden loud noise drew everyone's attention. Thankfully Remus was feeling charitable and covered for him yet again.

"Well, that was fun to watch… You lads done with your papers? Let's go see if James is back from practice and grab something to eat before Ethee gets slobbered on some more and we all lose our appetite." Sirius stood and rolled his eyes while a faint grin spread across his face and eased some of the tension he was radiating. Peter gathered up his stuff to join them as quickly as he could. "Don't linger too long by yourselves," Remus muttered quietly to the group of girls who were still sitting in shocked silence, "Wouldn't want to have to field any marriage proposals before your O.W.L.'s are in." He winked and Theia scoffed and rolled her eyes at him while the blush that had flushed up her face receded.

As the group of boys pushed through the library doors and out into the corridor, Remus spoke again in a hushed but amused tone of voice.

"You guys might have a shot in hell to win this bloody fucking game finally when we break the news to James about this new Luke kid. He's going to be…" Remus shook his head briefly and then a feral-looking grin spread across his face and Sirius caught a glint of gold in his usually amber eyes. "I wish I could be there to see the next time that guy reaches for Ethee's hand without her permission though... She's going to eat him alive."

The tepid grin on Sirius's face turned into a dark smirk as he realized how right he was. She was a firecracker when she wanted to be. His chest surged with the hope that this would be one of those instances, and he'd be close by to witness the aftermath.