Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. Also, this fic contains sexual content. Feel free to back out if need be.

Author's Note: It never gets mentioned but in this fic, the war never happened. Whether that was because Voldemort never existed or Dumbledore didn't, let your heart lead you. Neither are important to the details of the story. Oh, and I'm not quite certain how to warn people, but Regulus & Sirius are in the same polycule here, even if they aren't together like that, and there is sexual activity while both are physically present in the room. I wouldn't label it incestuous, but some of y'all might be squicky about it.

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 14); MC4A (Year 4)
Individual Challenges: Fix-It Felix; Gryffindor MC (x4); Hufflepuff MC; Slytherin MC; Magical MC (x6) (Y); LEO MC; Medic MC; Neurodivergent; Rowl in Her Grave; Rian-Russo Inversion (x3); Ethnic & Present (x2); Shifter MC; The 3rd Rule; Lovely Triangle; Booger Breath; Ship Sails; Gwen's HP Bribery (Y); Hold the Mayo; Gender Bender; Lunar Era; Old Shoes; Short Jog (Y); Bucket Listing (Y); Two Cakes (Y); Eating Cake (Y)
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 14 – Assignment 09
Subject (Task No.): Travel & Tourism (Task#2: Write about a group [four or more people] of different people interacting.)
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Fantastic Beasts [182](Regulus Black); 365 Prompts [289](reading); Scavenger Hunt [61](Orange/Gemino/Peanut Butter)
Other MC4A Challenges: SpB [3E](Rites of Passage); TrB [1B](They Were Roommates); Ship (Star Chaser; Thorns; Canines; Star Petal; Moon Petal)[Sp Med 2](Hand Feeding); Hunt [Sp WD](Trans)/[Sp Con](Fruit)/[Sp Items](Couch); Chim [Isopra](Gender Bent; Royal Purple)
Representation(s): Alice/Lily/James/Regulus/Sirius/Remus/Marlene/Peter; NB Sirius Black
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Middle Name; Mother Hen; Nightingale; Spinning Plates; Unwanted Advice; Fire Song; Tomorrow's Shade; Second Verse (Ladylike; Not a Lamp; White Dress; Found Family; Nontraditional; Zucchini Bread); Chorus (Odd Feathers; Wabi Sabi; Fizzy Lemonade; Machismo); Demo 1 (Three's Company; Grease Monkey; Most Human Bean; Dog Star); Demo 2 (Creature Feature; Mermaid; Misshapen Pods; Yarnspinner); Demo 1 [x8](Car in a Tutu; Lock & Key; For the Vine; Lovely Coconuts; Queen Bee; Lettuce Hold Hands; Fruit Fly; Sweetest Burn); Demo 2 [x6](Larger than Life; Unicorn; Abandoned Ship; Surprise!; Turtle-Duck; Tootsies)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: 3 [x2](Thimble; Tether; Toad); SN [x1](Rail; Intercept; Spare); LiCK (Poppy; Tansy); CM (Brier; Navigate; Yogin)
Word Count: 1609 words

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Roommates & More
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After they had all graduated Hogwarts, they had decided to try out living in the muggle world.

Living in their own place, instead of their familial homes or boarding school, was a rite of passage, after all. While James had an excellent relationship with his parents, the others weren't so lucky. Alice's parents weren't bad exactly, just traveling a lot for their research into magical botany. Remus adored his mother, but his father had obvious issues with both Remus' lycanthropy and lack of heterosexuality. Lily's parents had died in a car accident just before NEWTs and the less said about her sister the better. Sirius and Regulus weren't truly disowned by their parents, but that had more to do with the fact that it wasn't up to Walburga instead of anything else.

Marlene and Peter had both decided against moving into the house that they gotten for their group. Marlene loved living in her familial compound which was set up for several generations of McKinnons to be in residence at any given time and still have their own space. Without Marlene planning to be there, Peter opted to not move in with the others. The dynamics of their particular friend group meant that the boundaries of the three couples were a bit blurry and prone to being used as jump ropes. Peter was the only one who actively didn't enjoy any sexual activities, even if he wasn't actively involved. Rather than make the others need to be on their guard in their own home, he had decided to get his own flat nearby (which ended up being in the small apartment building right next door).

So the six of them (Alice, Lily, Remus, Sirius, Regulus, and James) were all roommates. Alice and Lily shared the bedroom taking up the top floor. Remus and Sirius shared the room with the balcony that looked over the back garden, because Sirius liked being able to act out Juliet's monologue (the lilac bush dutifully stood in for the missing Romeo). James and Regulus managed to get the smallest bedroom of the four available, but since it had an en suite, neither of them were going to complain. The fourth bedroom served as a guest room for whenever Peter or Marlene wanted to sleep over.

Between the six of them, they could easily afford the house they were renting as well as all of the necessities of life and more than a few luxuries. Strictly speaking, none of them needed to work to do it either, given how they were pooling resources for everything instead of just splitting the rent and utilities. Having four substantial trust funds with generous monthly allowances (not to mention Sirius' inheritance from an uncle Walburga would have disowned as well) tended to take care of that kind of thing even before factoring in the legal loophole that Lily and Remus had figured out to make their accounts grow.

Honestly, those two were a bit scary when they decided to put their heads together on something. None of the rest of them were slouches when it came to intelligence, but Lily and Remus were in another league entirely. Add Sirius or Alice to the mix, and the possibilities were endless. Alice had a tenacity and a vicious protective streak which matched the mascot of her House while Sirius was a powerhouse of strength and recklessness that had kept him tops in Quidditch as much as it had landed him in trouble. With Regulus always willing to help things along in the background, the world would never know what happened before it was taken over.

If someone had asked James back when he had been a third or fourth year if he had ever pictured a scenario when he was the member of their group that was least likely to stage a coup, he would not have been able to say that he could have. Now it was nearly as frequent an occurrence as finding damp towels on the bathroom floor.

"Seriously?" James asked incredulously as he picked up the offending orange fabric. He shook it out with a snap of his wrists before drawing his wand to dry it. Then he folded it and hung it back on Sirius' towel next to Remus' dark blue one. "The rack is right there. Two steps. That's all it would take. Two steps. Max."

He took care of his business and pulled up his sleep pants. Then he went to wash his hands. But when he pushed down on the soap dispenser, it made a squelchy protest instead of giving out soap. James sighed in deep disappointment before crouching down to get the bottle of liquid hand soap from under the sink. Carefully, he refilled the dispenser with the creamy soap. The scent of lavender and lemon lightly scented the air.

Household task complete, he (finally) washed his hands and left the bathroom.

The front room was full of his fellow housemates. Alice was reading a book while curled up in the dark green armchair shoved in the corner farthest from the lit fireplace. On one of the wide arms of the over-sized monstrosity was a plate of green apple slices smeared with creamy peanut butter along with a bottle of water. She didn't seem to be paying attention to the activity taking place on the chaise that had been dragged to the center of the room, but James could tell that she was watching over the top of her paperback.

Regulus was kneeling in front of Alice's chair with his head resting on her shins. His eyes were closed in oblivious bliss as Alice used the hand not holding her book to card through Regulus' dark hair. James knew the apple slices were for Regulus. While a part of him was admittedly jealous that Regulus was clearly in subspace for someone other than him, a larger part was relieved that his boyfriend was finally relaxing after his visit to Walburga that morning. Not to mention how Regulus had skipped breakfast out of anxiety about the meeting and then lunch due to stress from the meeting.

Alice nodded an acknowledgment of James' gaze. As he watched, she finished the stroke she was on and picked up one of the slices. Regulus accepted the food from her hand without opening his eyes. He licked his lips after he had swallowed before rubbing his cheek against the leg it was resting upon. Alice smiled indulgently as she returned to petting him.

Finally, James allowed himself to focus his attention on the royal purple chaise in the center of the room.

Sirius was lying on the chaise with his arms raised above his head and his long hair haloing his tossing head. Someone had conjured a length of rope that wrapped around Sirius' wrists and held him in the position. Since said rope was emerald, James thought it was either Regulus (always one to give a nod towards his sorting, especially outnumbered by former Gryffindors as he was) or Lily (who tended towards the color as a nod towards her unusual eye color). Actually, he was leaning towards Lily since it resembled a braid of crochet chains.

If Sirius was wearing anything, James couldn't tell. Lily was straddling both Sirius and the chaise he was lying on and the black lace skirt she was wearing hid his hips from view with the way it was draped. James couldn't even see her legs other than her feet. With the dark brown of her skin, the neon green polish on her toes stood out like beacons, as did the yellow sports bra she was wearing. She was moving her hips in circles, barely raising any as she did, with her hands braced on either side of Sirius' shoulders.

Lily tossed back her head, sending her dark red coils bouncing, and let out a loud moan. That was when James noticed that the back of her skirt was not laying the way it would if it was against Sirius' legs or just the end of the chaise. In fact, it was draped over a hunched figure whose calves and feet stuck out of its cover. As strange as it might seem, James recognized those ankles.

No sooner than James had, Remus slipped his torso and head out from under Lily's skirt. His grin when he spotted James was particularly wolfish. He pulled one hand out and beckoned James closer.

"Oh, good, you're here," Remus greeted. "Be a deer and hand me that toy right there." He paused, looking back at how Sirius was now thrusting upwards into Lily's grinding. "Best duplicate it. Looks like I'll need two." His grin got a little crooked as he watched James picking up the Gryffindor red dildo from the coffee table. "You're welcome to make a third if you want."

"Gemino," James said, immediately handing off the copied toy. He weighed the original in his hand for a moment, considering his options. It was clearly from Sirius' collection, given the color, and just a shade on the intimidating for someone like him who rarely bottomed. Then again, he wasn't a Gryffindor because he was afraid of a challenge. He cast the spell again and handed off the original.

"Very good," Remus said as he accepted the second toy and disappeared back under Lily's skirt with both. James felt his cheeks flushing at both the words and the treatment. He could already feel the edges of his awareness softening as he slipped into the right mindset, letting go of any lingering worries about household chores.

It wasn't like they were going to go anywhere.

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An Ending
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