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The Perks of Being an Animagus
“Whose stupid idea was it to move into a muggle building again?” Marlene grunted, carrying a heavy box with her books and knick-knacks up the stairs because of course the bloody lift was broken.
“I’m pretty sure it was yours, Marley,” James said, passing next to her on his way back down to get another box.
“Well, you should have stopped me!” she called after him. “What kind of best friend are you?” The only answer she got was his laugher echoing up the staircase. Git.
They didn’t have to move entirely the muggle way, but they also couldn’t just shrink the boxes and suddenly have their flat filled with them without causing suspicion with the neighbours. Plus, Sirius had insisted in the whole ‘muggle experience.’ Now that she thought about it, where was he, anyway?
At least it wasn’t such a high building and their flat was on the third floor. It made for some good exercise, similar to what James had them doing back at Quidditch practice sometimes – climbing up and down the stands. Granted, they weren’t carrying heavy boxes back then.
Lily and Alice were getting things set up in the flat itself – unpacking and putting her and Sirius’ things away, – Remus and Dorcas were setting up the furniture (with magic, as long as they stayed away from the open door) and James, Frank, Sirius and herself were taking the boxes up to their new place.
Marlene finally reached flat nº 303 and dragged her feet on the way in, passing by the girls on the small kitchen and making her way into the bedroom.
“Listen, lovebirds,” she said, rolling her eyes as Remus and Dorcas jumped away from each other like guilty teens caught snogging by their parents. Well, only one thing in that sentence had happened. “Do you mind not breaking the bed in before Sirius and I have a chance?”
“Sorry, Marls,” Remus said, shooting her an apologetic smile while Doe rolled her eyes.
Chuckling, Marlene put down the box she was carrying and, with a knowing smirk, left the room.
They had been at it since early afternoon, who knew she and Sirius owned so much shit? She wiped the sweat from her forehead with her arm, pushing away the little hairs that had been stuck on it. Making her way to the kitchen, Marlene accepted the cold glass of water Lily offered her. After chugging it all down in one go, she took a deep breath.
“Everything alright here?” she asked them, noticing they had most of the kitchen done and had started on the living room. The radio was playing softly on the background.
“Everything is fine, Marley,” Alice said, taking the glass from her hand and filling it again, acknowledging her ‘thanks’ with a nod and a smile.
“Okay, good, good… Have you seen Sirius?”
Alice and Lily exchanged a look, barely contained smiles on their lips and a sparkle of mischief in their eyes.
Marlene groaned, hands on her hips and head thrown back in annoyance. She looked back at them, one eyebrow arched as their amusement finally broke through with snorts of laughter.
“Alright, out with it. Where is he?”
“He’s over at 305’s,” Lily answered, putting on her best straight face, complete with a line between her brows as she frowned. Marlene narrowed her eyes at her.
“You’re telling me Sirius is over at the neighbour’s place?”
Her friends nodded quickly, lips downturned at the corners in seriousness.
Something wasn’t right. Sirius was at the neighbour’s flat, that was… She was going to kill him. Oh, he wasn’t cheating, she knew that much. Not only would Lily and Alice never find that funny, she knew and trusted him; he wouldn’t do that, no. But whatever he was doing at 305’s aside, what he was not doing was helping with the move. His move. Their move.
Yep. She was going to kill him.
With one last glare at the two giggling girls, Marlene marched out of the flat and crossed the landing to the opposite door. They’d need to work on some muffling charms since the flats were far too close together and she and Sirius could be quite… loud, sometimes.
Putting the thought aside for later, she pounded her fist on the other neighbour’s door. It took a second and a cheery “Coming,” but the door opened and Marlene didn’t wait for the girl to speak.
“Where is he?” she asked, briskly marching past her neighbour into the flat.
“Oi!” the woman called, and Marlene finally turned to look at her: she was short, with raven black hair and somewhere between her late twenties to early thirties. Brown eyes glared at her, but Marlene didn’t particularly care.
“Where is he?” she repeated, looking over the flat and not immediately seeing her boyfriend.
“Oh, he’s yours, then?” the woman asked, walking past her towards the couch, offended frown melting into a warm smile; Marlene followed. “I just saw him outside in the hall and thought he’d wandered inside the building. He looked tired, the poor thing,” she paused next to the couch, shooting her a sad look. “I brought him in before the landlord could see him, you see, dogs aren’t allowed.” She turned to look at the floor in front of the couch and Marlene finally turned her confused stare away from the petite woman.
On the floor, under the coffee table in front of the couch, lied Sirius; or, should she say, Padfoot. His head was lying on his front paws and he was giving her the most puppy look she had ever seen. Ugh, she was going to kill him.
“Cats are fine, for some reason,” the woman rambled on, “but not dogs. Not that flats are really the place for them, right? The poor things need the space to move around, especially big ones like him. What is his name, anyway? He doesn’t have a collar, that’s why I thought he was a stray.”
Marlene dragged her eyes way from Padfoot back to the woman, and she wondered if she had even stopped to take a breath since she began talking. She blinked dumbly at her for a moment or two, before she realized she was waiting for a reply.
“Snuffles. His name’s Snuffles.”
Sirius barked and growled a bit, offended. Marlene really couldn’t give a fuck.
“He’s my friend’s dog,” she told the woman, ignoring Padfoot as he crawled out from under the coffee table to sit by her feet. “I’m getting rid of him today, though.”
Padfoot whined, pushing his nose into her legs. She didn’t even look at him.
“Aw, he’s such a sweetheart! So smart!” the woman – Marlene should really learn her name – scratched his head before straightening and shooting her another warm smile. “Well, I suppose it’s good he’ll be going home, isn’t it?”
Marlene nodded in agreement and then smiled, shoulders relaxing as she figured her neighbour shouldn’t suffer because her boyfriend was a complete wanker. “I’m Marlene McKinnon, by the way,” she said, offering a hand.
“I’m Jenna,” the woman – Jenna – smiled, taking her hand and giving it a firm shake. “Jenna Moseley.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Jenna, but I should probably go back to help with the moving,” Marlene pointed her thumb behind her to the still open door.
“Oh, of course, of course!” She led the way to the door, giving Padfoot another scratch on the head as he followed Marlene to the exit. “Welcome to the building! If you ever need anything, just let me know.”
Marlene smiled, genuinely grateful, “Thank you! I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Bye.”
The door to number 305 closed with a quiet click, and Marlene glared at the dog by her feet. She knew why he did it, of course; it’s not like she could yell at a dog in front of muggles without sounding like a crazy person. Sure, she couldn’t do that in front of wizards either, but stranger things had happened in the Wizarding World, so they’d mostly just shrug it off as another Thursday.
After shooting her a pleading look, Padfoot trotted into their flat. She followed, glowering at him.
“Ah, there you guys are!” James said, taking in Sirius’ current form and Marlene’s glare, the smile slipped off his face and he whined, “Oh, come on! We just finished getting everything moved in. Please don’t tell me we’ll have to move it all out again.”
Marlene turned her glare on him, and James immediately straightened up, all joking leaving his expression only for it to be replaced with worry. “Marley?”
She didn’t answer him, or looked at the others, she just marched into their new bedroom and stood looking out the window, arms crossed, until she heard the telltale sound of Sirius transforming back, and then the door closing with a gentle click.
“Marlene,– ” he started, but she cut him off.
“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” her voice was casual, as if she was commenting on the weather outside.
“What? No, that’s–”
She forced out a laugh, “I mean, James will whine, but I’m sure he’d help you move back out.”
“No! Marlene, will you look at me?” Sirius said, just a hint of desperation in his voice as he put a gentle hand on her shoulder – he knew better than to try and make her turn around if she didn’t want to.
Schooling her features, she turned, a small – so obviously fake – smile on her lips. She forced her shoulders to relax and uncrossed her arms, gesturing with them instead.
“It’s fine, really,” she said, nodding – to convince him or her, she wasn’t sure. “I mean, I’d rather you had said something sooner, but it’s alright. We’ll just,” she looked around; there were a few boxes still unpacked, probably private things, but Remus and Dorcas had made a good job of setting up their room… her room. Marlene swallowed, looking back at him, “We’ll just have to sort out your stuff and pack it back up again.” She offered him another smile.
Sirius shook his head, taking a step away from her, a bitter laugh escaping his lips.
“I hate it when you do this.”
“Do what?” She frowned.
“This,” he said, voice getting stronger and just a bit louder, one hand gesturing to her feigned tranquillity. “When you just pretend everything is alright even though it clearly isn’t!”
“It isn’t?” she asked, voice hard and low, crossing her arms again. “Why is that, do you think?”
“Look,” Sirius took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment before approaching her again. “I was just taking a break, I was going to keep helping in a minute.”
“Oh, I get being tired, believe me. Do you think I’m not? Going up and down those stairs with all of our stuff because you wanted ‘the full muggle experience,’” she made air quotes, voice steadily growing louder. “What I don’t get is why you felt the need to hide as Padfoot in a stranger’s flat!”
“I was not hiding!” Sirius protested, eyes darkening at the unspoken ‘like a coward.’
“It looked a lot like hiding to me!” she yelled, before letting out a loud sigh. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, continuing before he could speak again. “Look, Sirius,” and as Marlene opened her eyes again, all the fight left her; now her eyes just looked sad. “If you don’t want this, it’s fine. Honestly. If this is all too, too domestic for you, I understand. I just don’t want you to feel like you need to hide from me, because if you do, then this really isn’t going to work.”
Marlene watched him, heart in her throat, as his shoulders slumped and he too took a deep breath, eyes growing just as sad as hers while he walked closer and pulled her into a hug. She wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her hands against his back to pull him closer.
They had been so happy before, looking for a place together. It was a relief to find their relationship worked just fine outside of Hogwarts; better, even, seeing as there weren’t girls constantly throwing themselves at her boyfriend anymore. Marlene had spent half a year after school living with her parents while she was training to be an Auror. Soon after she quit the Ministry and joined the Order full time, she and Sirius decided to get a place for themselves.
They wanted to be close to the Wizarding community, but things were getting more and more dangerous and, being known members of the Order, they would be easy targets on Diagon Alley – their first choice of where to live, so they compromised: just around the corner from Leaky Cauldron, in a muggle area, there were flats for rent. They weren’t looking for anything specific and they knew it would mostly be a place to take a breather amongst the war, but it was theirs and it was perfect: on the third floor, the windows – high and large, allowing for the sun to bath the leaving room in light – had a nice view of the busy city life. The flat wasn’t very big, but they didn’t own many things anyway, and the fireplace wasn’t big enough for someone to use Floo, but in times like these, it was better like that; so they made do.
It was supposed to be a completely new chapter of their lives.
“It’s not,” he muttered against her hair. She pulled back and he must have seen the confusion on her face because he continued. “It’s not too domestic for me, I’m sorry. I didn’t… I didn’t mean to hide.”
“Then why did you?” she asked, and hated how small her voice sounded, but Marlene knew Sirius wouldn’t judge her for it.
“Everything, it was just a little too much, and I just got…” scared, he didn’t say, but he didn’t need to.
Her face softened and Marlene brought a hand up to caress his cheek.
“I am too,” she said and didn’t need to specify. She let out a breathy laugh before she could stop it. Sirius grinned down at her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, eyes locked with hers and Marlene wondered if there ever would come a time when he wouldn’t make her feel sappy with how much she loved him.
A smirk formed on her lips, and she slipped her arms around his neck, playing with the little hairs there. Looking him up and down before fixing her eyes on his lips for just a minute too long, she met his gaze again – this time, darkened for a whole other reason. “Want to make it up to me?” she asked, making her voice low and a bit husky, wetting her lower lip before biting it.
Sirius didn’t answer, at least, not with words.
He swooped down and captured her lower lip between his own teeth, hands going around her waist to pull her hips against his. The kiss deepened and she lightly pushed him back, holding on to his neck to make sure he understood she just wanted him to stop kissing her. Sirius walked backwards until his legs hit their new bed and he sat down, hard. Marlene didn’t waste time before she sitting on his lap, straddling his thighs while his hands slipped underneath her shirt.
When the need to breathe became too much, Sirius slipped away from her mouth and towards her neck, nipping and sucking his way down her jaw, to her earlobe, and finally to the place where her shoulder met her neck.
Suddenly, he pulled away, leaning back when she tried to follow him. Through her half-closed and dazed eyes, she noticed his frown.
“Snuffles?” he asked, panting lightly but with clear outrage in his voice, his lips turned into a sneer.
“What?” The fog of arousal was slowly lifting from her brain, and she finally registered what he was talking about.
“Snuffles, really?” he scoffed. “You couldn’t have thought of something better? I dunno, like Brutus, or Spot, or Bandit, or even Padfoot! Did it have to be Snuffles?”
Staring at his quite clear disgust of the name, Marlene couldn’t help the loud snort that left her mouth. Soon, she had her forehead on his shoulder as she shook with silent laughter. Behind her back, Sirius smiled.
After a few moments, Marlene leaned back, eyes locking with his with so much love; he was awestruck. He wanted to say it, he wanted so badly to just tell her. Before he could even open his mouth, a loud knock sounded on the door.
“If you two are alive in there, you better not be shagging,” Lily’s voice sounded from the other side; they could hear the amusement on her tone. “I don’t think James could take it.”
“Lily!” They heard James call, and then laughter came in from their leaving room.
“We’ve got food, and we’re not waiting for you!” she said, and they heard her soft steps walk away from the door.
Sirius and Marlene smiled at each other, the faint sounds of their friends’ conversation coming in through the closed door, and they knew they would be alright.