Chapter Text
They made up. As always. It seemed they couldn’t live without each other. Or – they didn't want to live without each other.
James was laying across his bed, his head was hanging down. He was watching upside down Sirius sitting on Remus' bed and Remus himself who was repeatedly ordering their friend to move aside in attempt to make the bed. James' head was slowly filling up with blurred thoughts that appeared only under the influence of unsettled balance; nonetheless, he didn't plan to change his position.
"Anyways, I hope you don't expect too much after my night with Lily. Not exactly everything went as I planned," he started.
Yes, it's true, he attached himself to Lily. He found her near the Great Hall in the company of a Ravenclaw Prefect with whom she was assigned for a night patrol, but James chatted a little and sent the boy to the other side of the castle so that he wouldn't disturb them. As soon as the smell of the Ravenclaw's suffocating perfume combined with the air, James begin to kiss Lily, and she enjoyed it even more than she was willing to admit.
"Spare the details, James," whined Sirius.
Nighttime fancy of smooching friends still stood before his eyes when he blinked (he tried to do it as rarely as possible), and Potter's story about every type of kisses and other ways to transfer body fluids between two teenagers in love would be unbearable. As if someone added audiodescription for an erotic film. Definitely nobody needs it.
"And when you're telling me and Remus about your conquers then it's fine?" he barked, but omitted the details. Visibly he accomplished this with much hardship. A look of pride mixed with frustration was showing on his face each time he wanted to describe Lily's behaviour, appearance or reaction to his touch or his words.
He was kissing her, and she – like in Sirius' half dream, what he noticed unpleased – was pulling back from him to scan the hall. One moment, Lily saw Filch's shadow casted on the wall and James dragged her by her hand to the side free of the caretaker's phantom. James whispered: "We can hide somewhere". As though he heard it, Filch started walking quicker and a second later he showed up in the middle of the corridor. He looked straight at them with a cold, icy gaze. He let out a sinister sound, a cry or a groan, a creak of a rusty gate and James begin to run away, still holding Lily's hand. Before the girl made out what was happening, she was running alongside him and when it crossed her mind she's on a patrol and has to be out of her dorm tonight, it was too late, and the only good idea was to continue the flight.
"I wish I could say we weren't caught and the rest of the night was nice," said the escapee.
Dumbledore was the one that caught them. He was walking from the kitchen with a plate with many gingerbread cookies. James stopped before him what, with relief, did Lily as well, exhausted from the exercise. She didn't have the stamina of a Quiddich team captain.
"Good night, sir. I see you dreamt about little gingerbread men," the boy said as though they met on a street on a beautiful Thursday night.
Dumbledore glanced down at the pile of dark cookies. He looked like someone who was told to hold the plate as long as one doesn't return. His voice sounded normally, though.
"Christmas is in half a year. I don't want to forget their taste until then."
"In sen mons" broke in panting Lily. Neither understood her so they continued the conversation.
"What a coincidence! I thought just the same! And this stunning miss Prefect, empathetic to the requests and entreaties of the people, is right now leading me to the kitchen, to taste the Christmas magic. If it wasn't for her, I could never fall sleep."
"You really thought he'd believe this?" Remus asked. "Could you kindly stop rumpling my pillow?"
Sirius smiled with his whole face, raising his hands high. "I'm just making it softer for the improvement of your sleep."
"The best part was he did believe me," James caught his friends attention again. "Well, at least until Filch materialised behind us. They exchanged some weird looks, old D even made some swan with his hand or some other duck, and then Flich went away. He huffed at us, but I swear, I knew he wanted to spit."
Before there were ducks, James turned around and, standing face to face with the terrifying caretaker, he paled. He didn't want Lily to experience her first detention because of him, especially because she was innocent. He began speaking that only he should be punished; he, without permission, was spending the night outside the Gryffindor Tower, Lily didn't do anything, but frankly yes, she did, she was being a responsible Prefect and, in addition, she wanted to walk him back to his dorm to make sure he's there.
Dumbledore said he understood, however, they would still be punished.
"It's all so no teacher nor Filch finds it unfair," the man explained.
They were obligated to mop the floor in every corridor they had run through, but Dumbledore, maybe due to the state he was in – something between sugar high and sleeplessness – said he wouldn't confiscate their wands. He suggested only they clean slowly so nobody would think they use magic. No specific date was chosen.
"Choose a day that's good for you both and, when you finish, send me an owl or something. A gingerbread cookie?"
"You can imagine how Lily acts when she sees me." James seemed sad.
Sirius couldn't imagine that; his relationships with the opposite sex lasted no longer than a few weeks (if he got lucky enough and they were talking a little between more action-oriented activities). Usually, it was at most three days. Never had he gotten to this point in a relationship when one side is unhappy about the other one's behaviour.
"She's sad," he tried to guess. He stood up under the strain of Remus' gaze, who was now wading through the bedclothes in search of the wand. With an exaggerated gesture, Sirius pulled it out of his pants pocket and handed to him. Remus smacked the back of his head like a mother would to a naughty child.
"She's mad as a tiger, I saw her downstairs. – James, I think she wants to kill you," Remus uttered with a growing seriousness. James shivered, he hid behind a jolly smile, however.
"Lily would never hurt somebody as handsome as me."
His friends send each other gazes. From Remus' nose escaped a repressed sigh when he was forcefully closing his bag. It was packed above the limit and if, instead of books, water was filling it, they would be bathing their ankles for a long time now. The rest of the Marauders had to wait for him, as usual, because despite holding the title of an organised student, the mess in the boy's things was sometimes worse than in their own times two. That's why the morning packing was taking over half an hour each day.
"I'm done. Are we going?"
There was still a hint of that forced smile on James' lips, but the boy, seemingly by accident, was walking down the stairs behind taller Sirius as to – in the best possible scenario – stay far from Lily's fierce glare. When Sirius sped up a little to reveal his position and find out how the conflict on the line Potter-future Mrs Potter would escalate, the boy clinged onto his robe and didn't let go, glued to his back until Lily spoke up.
The girl was truly red-hot, not like yesterday, according to James – confused and jittery. She looked like one of the ancient Greek Furies, ready to destroy everything and everyone that conduced to her first punishment in her entire life. Face and hands matched the colour of her hair, eyes were nervously scanning the room in order to find the cause of all her problems. When she spotted James who tried to hide behind his friend even more, she walked up to him and, in a calm voice, although her ears were red, and she was clenching her fingers on the bag strap as if she wanted to hit James with it, she asked:
"Jamie, can we talk?"
"Don't let her! She's never called me that before! She truly wants to murder me," Potter hissed so fast that Sirius had trouble understanding his request. He pulled on his face an apologetic expression and tilted his head to a side.
"Unfortunately, he can't. We're going to a party."
He remembered the calendar hanging on their dorm's door filled with notes on moon fazes, James' dates with Lily, due dates for all sorts of assignments and dates of the premieres of new music albums. On today's square there was a huge writing that read: Ravenclaw – free alcohol.
Lily didn't seem convinced. She moved her body weight to one leg, eyeing them intently.
"Before breakfast?"
"No, but they wanted to help me with those books. There's a lot of them, and I can't take them to the library alone." Their third half rushed to rescue them, just stepping down the stairs. The lower part of his face was covered by a stack of books pressed to the chest with hope they don't fall. To make his word more plausible, Remus put half of the books in each boy's arms and returned to their dorm only to come back with even greater stack.
"They want to help? James and Sirius? This James and Sirius?" Miss Prefect crossed her arms because his fully rational explanation was, in her opinion, not true.
Sirius snorted.
"Of course! We're amazing friends, and we would do everything for our little Remus."
Lily opened her lips; her cheeks were once again red.
"See you at Potions, Lily!" said Remus, noticing that Sirius' sentence was quite off the topic.
Not waiting for the girl to react in any way, he went through the Fat Lady painting, his friends following suit.
James put the books on the floor. In euphoria befogging his mind, he took Remus' face in both his hands and leaned closer his own. Lupin became white like a sheet of paper, feeling the boy's breath on his cheeks and, as if he scalded, stepped back, when their lips almost met, scared, puzzled, unsure.
"James, what the hell?" his voice faltered.
James, too elated by his small win to be able to think rationally, confessed:
"I love you, man."
A long, long silence.
"Leave this phrase for Lily," spoke Sirius.
Rames let out a big breath of air he unconsciously held inside and gave James another hesitant look. They did not talk upon this matter for some time.
James stubbornly avoided his girlfriend all day. He couldn't think of any good enough way to conciliate her.
"Maybe I'll give her flowers? Flowers always work," said to Sirius during their Spells class. His friend squinted at him.
"When you flirt. Not when you want her to forget you made her a bad girl."
He flinched at those words.
"You think she feels so?"
"That she's a bad girl? For sure."
James turned his whole body towards him and put his left hand on the table. Professor Flitwick looked at them with the corner of his eye.
"But it's not true! Lily's perfect!"
"You truly don't get girls, do you? Imagine this – you're a wonderful student, getting the highest grades, everyday you win your House a shitton of points, you have never missed a single class, teachers love you, you're a fucking Miss Prefect and suddenly some boy appears that can't even pronounce your name and is all the time on detention, and because of him and his stupid idea your reputation of being perfect in every aspect is ruined. Wouldn't you be furious?"
"Ooh, Sirius, you impress me," laughed Marlene who was sitting behind them. "When did you learn mind reading?"
Sirius looked above his shoulder to wink at her.
"It's not hard with such beautiful heads."
"Candy, then?" wondered James who got lost in thought and for some time was staring at the space behind the professor.
"You want her to be fat? Because that's exactly what she'll think. She'd be bad and fat, all thanks to you," joined Marlene. Too loud, too hard. Everybody turned their head in her direction, and she was battling herself not to show them with a special finger that they shouldn't be so interested.
"Miss McKinnon, a tone lower, please," rebuked her Flitwick. The girl tamely declined her head, but whispered to James:
"Just tell her you're sorry."
"It'll work?" He wasn't so sure. Girls were complicated; Marlene's idea was quite the opposite. There was no way it would help his situation.
"It will. You just have to be sincere."
Sirius nodded as if she was speaking to him. He had to remember McKinnon's advice. Not that he was dishonest each time he was with a girl. Sometimes, he simply wasn't telling the whole truth.
Not right away did he found out about the proceeding of the apology. After classes, he went straight to the Ravenclaw's part of the castle to the party, because they were always starting early. This time, too.
Next to the entrance to the Common Room there was a light haired Ravenclaw boy saying the answer to the riddle, as if guests from other Houses were not intelligent enough to figure it out themselves. Sirius wasn't, but others could be! Our Lion stood with hands resting on his hips mocking some tired mother standing over her small children yet again unclean thanks to mud and some trinkets of unknown orgin. His face grimanced when he heard a dumb riddle.
"What is red and bad for teeth?"
The boy with a blue tie sticking out of his pocket like some dead animal's tail was waiting impatiently what was showing in every muscle of his face until the rattle ended. Sirius, irritated by his presence and the voice squeaking in his head: "you're too stupid to solve it", rushed to answer before the boy could. The riddle seemed easy to him, and the answer immediately found its way to his lips.
"Blood."
Ravenclaw patted his shoulder when they didn't see the Common Room.
"I never guess it the first time, too. Brick."
Sirius stepped inside, not responding in any way to friendly "have fun". Almost straight away he experienced a close meeting with a banner three people were trying to hang at the ceiling. Thousand years, Willow!
"It's Nancy's birthday today?" he asked the boy leaned against the wall with a paper cup filled with a shiny liquid.
The boy quickly shook his head with his lips open and eyebrows funnily raised. "It's my birthday, dude! Don't you see my hat?"
He declined his head to make it more visible. The sharp tip of his paper hat in yellow dots nearly stabbed Sirius' nose. Gryffindor moved it to the side with his hand so that the tip was now on the left side of the birthday boy's head.
"You're Willow, too? Like Nancy?"
X Willow bowed to a girl who was waving at him from across the room and spilled his drink on the floor. Sirius couldn't tell from which House she was as she had already changed her robe to a short black dress.
"Thare's more than one willow in a forest." Ravenclaw made a foolish face while trying to sound wise.
"Willows don't grow in forests, Ralfie." Nancy was holding a tray on which laid many kinds of hard snacks. Sirius feasted his eyes; the Marauders did not make it to breakfast. "Hi, Sirius."
"You're siblings?"
"God, no," they said at the same time and eyed each other hostility like siblings.
"It's an unpleasant coincidence," added Nancy.
"Unpleasant, because I'm smarter and she's only less pretty."
"Ralf, check if you're not outside the window," bit back the girl.
"You go first. I don't know which window you're talking about, darling."
Sirius laughed quietly and left them alone. He completely didn't believe they are not related. He and Regulus also acted like that before his younger brother was sorted to Slytherin and began to change under the influence of such people like that Adele. Adele? Was her name Adele?
"Nice guess! I'm Adele."
Beside him showed up some girl. He had never seen her before or maybe he did, from afar, in a crowd, standing in the shadow. Perhaps, no: during meals in the Great Hall his eyes were jumping between the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables, not once deviating to anything else. She had long brown hair, a round face and eyes in colour that was difficult to identify. Almost as tall as him in her high shiny heels.
"Have you got something to drink?" she asked. She was sizing him up but her eyes soon focused on his half unbuttoned shirt as though she wanted to know what was hiding further.
The answer to her question was no. The girl smiled and walked away to a table standing close to the stairs. There were several different kinds of booze, sorted by colour and hight. She mixed a few in a ceramic mug. The melody of "Rebel Rebel" escaped from the cassette player, and although he did not like David Bowie, he was glad that it was him singing because the girl was moving her hips to the rhythm and was raring to dance. He observed the way her dress clung on her butt when she leaned forward to reach a bottle with something red that stood on the other side of the table. She took a sip, and nodding her head with appreciation, she poured some into his mug. Next, she turned around and with two mugs – he had not noticed that she was making herself a drink as well – she returned to the wall, to him. Her legs were a little wobbly like that sip wasn't her first encounter with alcohol that day.
"Thanks, belle."
He took the mug. With a motion of his wrist he stired what was inside it and under the girl's watchful eye drank a tiny gulp. The drink was burning like hell and left a spicy aftertaste on the tongue that changed after a while to the strange licorice sweetness. He drank the rest all at once. He wished not to wonder much about the unpleasant consequences this mixture would induce in his stomach.
The corner of her mouth went up the second time.
"It's my own take on Amortentia."
He was now sure. He would spend the night with her.
He asked her to dance, bowing low and with a sweeping movement held out his right hand in her direction, exactly how he was taught at the Black household. Adele drank half of her drink and put the mug on a small table under one of the windows. Some calm music was playing; it sounded like from a tacky musical, and he hated musicals even more than Bowie. He led her – Adele, use her name! – to the middle of the Common Room where the sofas, armchairs and other elements of decor were removed to make space for dancing, and spinned her. She laughed when he confidently put his hands on her back and hip pulling her closer than it was necessary. Adele put her arms around his neck, giving him a cheerful glance of a person who is just unpacking a present. A smile appeared on her lips when the Gryffindor's hand was slowly, imperceptibly moving down until it landed on the flattest part of the spine. He saw in her eyes that he had permission for more, however, he preferred to savour her discontent wince as he moved his hand back between her shoulders.
Adele was not so patient. She pulled his head to hers and said straight into his lips:
"Don't play with me, Black."
Her breath danced on his nose – sweet from sugar and nasty due to the consumed alcohol. Something tickled lightly the inside of his stomach. He wanted to press her lips to his brutally enough for her to feel it as a punishment for such behaviour.
He waited for the song to end watching carefully the girl's exquisite dance. It reminded him of water: intangible, but omnipresent like in the Slytherin Common Room. Slytherin again. He shouldn't have met with Regulus; now snakes would not leave his head.
The next track was a piece by the Carpenters.The birthday boy turned away from the boy he was talking with and shouted to play something better. Sirius didn't stay to hear the new melody; he took Adele by her hand and, yet again, led her in the direction of dorm. She intertwined their fingers as if they had been a couple for years.
"You have beds around here?"
Adele shook her head with a sorry expression. Her curls spilled over her shoulders.
"We had to sell them. Ralf wanted a new broom and we were all short of money. Now we sleep on the floor."
"Good, I never understpood the idea of beds."
"We can think about it together on my floor."
"Don't you have dormmates, baby?" he asked the following morning.
Adele opened the curtains, welcoming in gentle pink light. Sirius rubbed his eyes in amazement that he had woken up this early again. He also wondered how much the morning Adele was different form the one he came here with – this Adele, more than water, resembled the light in the room: soft, pink, warm.
"I do, I just scared them off. I don't want them to see that beautiful body of yours. You're all mine today." With a graceful movement she pulled the duvet down to the ground and his beautiful body covered the blanked of chill.
Sirius smiled at her, grabbing her hand and pulling her onto the bed. He hadn't had such a self-confident girl for a while. It was almost like a breath of fresh hot air after all those girls covering their faces with a pillow and "you know, I never thought you'd look at me". They were cute but not exactly what he wanted. She was what he wanted. At least that one morning.