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While electronic muggle technology had never worked within the walls of the school, an old wind-up gramophone did the trick, however, with the adage of a few spells to clean up the raspy sound, and of course, turn the crank when needed.
And it was with the backdrop of the musical stylings of Pink Floyd that the fourteen year old Gryffindors smoked their first joints.
It wasn't until James and Peter had finally managed to get Sirius on their own one afternoon after quidditch practice that they were able to put their plan into action.
It had been a long time coming, since they'd figured out Remus was lying about going home to visit his sick mother in second year, and subsequently spied on their friend the next time he made his excuses and left for - not Hogsmead station at all - the haunted old shack on the outskirts of the school grounds.
They'd been shocked at first, of course, but Peter had, rightly, pointed out that Remus was their friend, they knew him, they knew he wasn't dangerous.
If they could only figure out a way to keep the wolf from hurting them, they could even keep him company out there.
The Shrieking Shack was a damp, dusty, horrid little house, not somewhere anyone would like to spend any considerable amount of time, but surely the intrepid young Marauders would be able to sneak out there without being found out, and if anyone could make a night out of keeping a werecub company in a haunted house, it was surely them.
It had taken them over two years of covert holiday-break research and more than one uncomfortable visit to Nocturn Ally, but now, their transformation was complete, and the plan was unveiled - the rat, the dog and the stag were out of the bag, if you will - and they had spent their first full moon in the Shrieking Shack.
It was here Remus had introduced them to marijuana. For years he had used it to calm his nerves, ease his pain and keep him relaxed before and after his transformations, with the help of his mother at home, and Madame Pomfrey during term time. But while his carers had fed him spoonfuls of a distilled herbal potion, lately, he had started crumbling the raw herb into roll-up cigarettes, recreationally, in-between the Moons as he pleased. And now it was only natural that he would share it with his animal siblings. Because that's what they were, now, siblings. There was really no other way to describe the people who, unbeknownst to him, had known of his affliction all along, but had shown no fear. Instead they had subjected themselves to dangerous and irreversible magic well above their level, for no other reason than to be by his side.
Remus was not sure how he had been so lucky, or what he'd done to deserve it, but this was more than friendship - this was family.
He sat now in the open window of Gryffindor tower, lighting the end of a blunt with the tip of his wand, and taking a long, deep drag. He held his breath for a moment while passing the glowing stub to James, who were perched opposite him on the window ledge.
It was well past midnight. Most of the students were in bed, or at least in their dormitories, so the Marauders had the common room to themselves. They had dragged chairs and puffs over to the window, and were all lounging comfortably while sharing Remus' expertly rolled blunts around the group.
"This song is amazing," Marlene sighed dreamily, breathing out the thick white smoke and stretching to pass it on to Mary, after which she promptly flopped on the puff next to Sirius, her head in their lap.
Mary had, to Peter's delight, made herself comfortable on the armrest of his chair, her arm resting on the back of it, so that she had to bend all the way over him to pass the blunt back to Remus on the window seat.
Grinning up at Sirius from their lap, Marlene reached up and scrubbed her hand over their choppy hair.
"It's such a shame, you know, for a boy, you have such beautiful hair…" she trailed off as her scrubbing hand slowed to a gentle caress.
Smiling down at her, Sirius chuckled:
"I'm not a boy, Marls, don't call me 'boy' or 'him', you know this."
Marlene seemed to contemplate this, while Sirius took a deep pull on the blunt that had made the circuit back around to them.
"That's silly, isn't it? I can't call you 'him', but you're not a girl, so can't I call you 'her', either?"
"I'm not a girl." Sirius passed her the blunt. They were getting short with her now. "Can we not talk about this now? Change the record, literally please, put T-Rex on."
Marlene didn't move, but Dorcas obliged.
She took Pink Floyd off the turntable and placed the needle on the opening track of the T-Rex record.
She stood for a moment, studying the spinning record, then, as if she'd been gathering momentum, she turned back to the group and declared:
"I'm going to bed." This was clearly directed to Marlene, as she didn't meet the eyes of anyone else in the group, but Marlene just gave a lazy wave, eyes still locked on Sirius' face, and sing-sang,
"Nighty night, darling Dorc!"
After a beat the others joined her in bidding Dorcas good-night, but her back was already retreating through the archway that led to the girls' staircase.
Sirius squirmed in their seat. The atmosphere in the common room had changed, but they couldn't put their finger on why, but they felt somehow hyper-visible, uncomfortably so.
"So…" Marlene's hand was back, tickling the nape of their neck, "what can I call you, then?"
Remus was rolling a new joint, rubbing it between nimble fingers to roll it tight, then licking the edge of the rizzla and smoothing it down with his thumb, seemingly in one single motion, effortlessly, as if it was second nature to him now. But instead of claiming the first drag, he passed it to James, almost shoving it in his friend's face, surprising the boy, who fumbled to take it from him without dropping it out of the window.
"' They ', Marls, you call them ' they '. Fucking hell, it's not that complicated."
"Bloody hell, Moony, where did that come from?" James had nearly choked on the heavy weed smoke. He quickly passed the joint to Sirius while he sat upright, coughing and pounding his chest.
Frank, Peter and Mary were laughing heartily at the antics playing out before them, but Remus, flushed and flustered, just gave a derisive snort and turned to the window, avoiding the curious, and somewhat admiring, eyes of Sirius from their place on the puff.
He felt very tired, all of a sudden. So he slid off the window seat and waved his hand at the blunt that had made its way to Frank by now.
"Finish that if you want, I'm off to bed." And with that, he ducked into the doorway to the boys' staircase.
The blunt wandered another lap around them before James tossed it out the window.
"Gentlefolk, I bid you adieu as well", and he, too, slid off the window seat and bowed to the group with a flourish.
" Ok mes très chers, beaux rêves !" Sirius grinned.
"Hang on, Potter," Frank heaved himself off the floor and dusted himself off, "I'm going, too. I'm about to nod off here."
Mary made her excuses too, and, with a kiss on the cheek for Peter, she, too, slipped away.
"Sirius, walk me to my room," Marlene rocked herself up into sitting, then stood and offered Sirius her hand to help them off the floor.
Sirius took it, and theatricality hooked arms with their gigging friend.
"M'lady…"
Well inside the stairwell, Marlene pulled at their arm, urging them to stop, half way up. She turned to face them, nervously biting her lip, she held on to the arm they'd hooked moments earlier.
"Sirius," she whispered, searching their face, and swallowing hard, "I don't want to be with a boy."
And with that she stood on her tiptoes and kissed them.
Surprised at first, Sirius kissed her back.
It was nice; warm and wet, it tasted like weed, it was rather sloppy, but it was exciting , being kissed, kissing someone.
When they pulled apart, and Marlene fell back on her heels, they remembered what she'd said just now. Their silly grin vaned.
***
"Hagrid?"
The Marauders had spent much time in and around the Keeper of Keys' hut over the years. She had been a great help to them in sourcing ingredients for the complicated magic that was the animagus transformation, despite herself. Of course, she had never meant to, but up against three mischievous children she had had little chance of keeping her fountain of knowledge, as it pertained to the procurement of various contrabands, to herself.
Over the course of the years, however, they had become friendly.
Hagrid was a gentle giant, in the truest sense of the word, and it was this gentle nature, and her well established honesty and heart, that Sirius found themself seeking out this morning as they knocked on the heavy oak door to the cabin.
"C'min!" Hagrid's deep voice boomed from within, only slightly muffled by the solid wood door.
Inside, the large woman was sitting in an even larger armchair, darning a sock big enough that Sirius could have used it as a sleeping bag.
A giant kettle sat on the stove simmering gently, filling the room that was the whole of the bottom floor with the warming scent of winter spices and citrus.
"Mornin' young Sirius Black, wha' can I do for ya this mornin'?"
She put her darning down in her lap and sat up when when Sirius came inside, setting her feet down off the leather footstool and slipping them into a pair of sheep skin slippers as she did so.
The young teenager scuffed their feet on the welcome mat, hesitating for a moment before asking:
"May I sit? I would like to ask you something, something rather personal, I'm afraid…"
"Well then," Hagrid stuffed her mending into a knitting basket by her chair and got up. "You'd better come in then, it sounds like, have a cuppa."
She shuffled over to the stove and brought the kettle over to the sturdy kitchen table beside it. Waving Sirius inside, she took mugs, coasters, spoons, a sugar bowl, and a large tin of biscuits out of a rickety cupboard and set them on a tray which she handed to Sirius with instructions to set the table.
Hagrid herself rummaged in a drawer, and after a moment emerged triumphantly with a tea-cosy. Both the cosy and the coasters looked to be her own handiwork, like so much else in the hut they were weaved, knitted, knotted, carved, sewn or crocheted by the woman herself.
Her clothes may not have been homemade, but they were definitely home-mended. She had on long, thick stockings, a well-worn cardigan with large flowers embroidered on it over a paisley blouse, and a long tie-dyed skirt. Her long black hair hung in a thick braid down her back, and her beard, which usually donned a pretty ribbon, currently seemed to serve as needle cushion.
Sirius hoisted themself onto the wooden bench under the window that faced out into the little kitchen garden in front of the hut, and let Hagrid fill the large mug in front of them with strong, over-brewed tea.
"Well then," she said again, as she sat down in a chair opposite and offered the tin of biscuits, "biscuit? Made 'em meself, see. Turned out a bit hard maybe, but they make for good dunking."
She winked at them with one of her bright, black eyes and gave them a disarming, gentle smile.
Tentatively, Sirius returned the smile, although it did not reach their eyes.
"What's wrong, kidde, yer usually one o' the rowdier ones, what's eatin' ya?"
Sirius squirmed. They were not even sure they knew the answer to that themself, never mind what the question they needed to ask was. They felt nauseous, sweating but cold at the same time, and dizzy. Squeezing their eyes shut, they tried to shake themself out of it and take a deep breath.
"How do you know if you're a boy or a girl?"
Hagrid thought about this for a few moments before answering.
"I think ya just know , kidde."
"But what if you're neither?"
"Then yer neither, ain't ya?" Hagrid shrugged.
"But if you're neither a boy nor a girl, what are you, then?" Sirius pressed on.
"If you're a boy, people call you 'he' and 'him'. And if you're a girl, then people call you 'she' and 'her'..."
Hagrid held her hands up to indicate to them to slow down, then she took a long sip of her sweet milky tea, cupping the large mug in front of her with both hands on the table as she leaned in slightly.
"Are ya sayin' yer neither, then, kidde?"
"I…" Sirius began, taking another couple of deep breaths before continuing, "I know I'm not a boy. I think I've always known, but I can walk up the girls' stairs in Gryffindor tower. I know I'm not a girl though…"
"That's fine!" Hagrid exclaimed encouragingly, "ye don't have to be one or th'other if that's not who ye're."
"But if I want to wear lipstick, or a dress, does that not mean I should be a girl?"
Sirius felt like they were about to cry. Wanting to wear their mother's clothes and make-up was a conflicting feeling. They did not like their mother, not even her clothes - both only invoked feelings of shame and dread, quickly morphing into a hot ball of anger in their stomach - but the urge to wear the kind of clothes that had been so distinctly off limits their whole life was strong. Having been told their whole life that they had to be a boy, wearing girls' clothing felt like the only natural statement of opposition, the obvious outwards sign that they were, in fact, not a boy.
But they were not a girl, so where did that leave them?
Hagrid did not know, but she did know this:
"It's not yer clothes that make ya who ye are, it's what ye feel in yer heart. If Minerva McGonagall put on a pair o' trousers, she wouldn't stop being a woman, would she, now?"
The image made Sirius snort a laugh into their mug, spraying tea over the sides and onto the table. They imagined their stern Head of House in the kind of clothes Romy's boyfriend Teddy would wear, and it looked so strange, seeing her in their mind's eye, in flare legged corduroy trousers and a button down shirt with wide collars. It looked quite neat, if they were honest, but Hagrid was right, of course, that the change of clothes did not turn McGonagall into anything other than a sharp-dressed muggle woman.
"Albus Dumbledore, Merlin love 'im, practically wears a dress, were ya t'ask any muggle 'round," she continued.
"An' besides, ya know very well I'm a woman, always been one, beard an' all".
Of course, she was right. Every year a fresh batch of first-year students would murmur amongst themselves as their headmaster introduced Miss Rubeus Hagrid, and every year he would put a swift end to the whispers by confirming that, yes, their Keeper of Keys did indeed have a beard, and quite a glorious one at that, and that, that would be the end of that.
Sirius thought about the clothes Teddy and Romy had worn that summer, and the clothes their uncle Alphard's partner wore.
They could not see themself in high boots and short skirts, while it looked natural on their older cousin, and she wore it with grace, Sirius felt that on them it would feel like they were playing dress-up.
Teddy's and George's clothes, however, would suit Remus better than themself. They wore browns and orange, jumpers with turtlenecks, and their hair was wild like Remus'. They knew Remus lived in a mixed community of wizards and muggles - where wizards lived, not out in the open, but not in hiding, either - and that his mother was a muggle woman. Maybe Remus did wear this kind of clothes outside of Hogwarts?
They had not really taken much notice before, but now they found that they had grown curious about their friend…
But the two muggle men still looked completely different to each other, despite wearing what Sirius thought looked to be the same type of clothes.
Perhaps because they had very different bodies. George was younger than their uncle, but he was much older than Ted Tonks, and had a gut, a barrel chest and thin limbs.
That's why, Sirius thought, they themself could not fathom putting on Romy's skirt and boots. Their cousin had a slim waist and shapely legs. A get-up like that on Sirius' own narrow hips and knobbly knees would look like they were wearing someone else's clothes.
"Ya 'right, kidde?" Hagrid's friendly eyes were watching them over the rim of her mug.
She was smiling into her tea, warm and friendly, and Sirius couldn't help but smile back.
"Yeah, I think so. Thanks, Hagrid."
***
And then there were Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, Elton John, Vivianne Westwood, Patti Smith, the New York Dolls, Marc Bolan and T-Rex, Freddie Mercury and Queen, Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, Janis Joplin - from Iggy to Ziggy they all dressed like a little bit of an in-between wizards and muggles, and in-between men and women.
It was not that different from how wizards dressed, really. Yes, the clothes looked different, but the beads and embroidery, the vibrant colours and textures, they were much the same in many ways, even down to the jewellery.
This is what they told Marlene when they broke away from the kiss and each wiped their mouths on the back of their hands.
They were standing behind one of the greenhouses, hidden from the prying eyes of prefects and off-duty teachers, while the rest of their year were divided up between Divination and Ancient Runes.
"We could go to muggle London one day, go to a rock concert".
"We can do that?" Sirius' mouth remained agape for a moment, as if the realisation that these people - these rock stars, these magical muggles - were in fact real people, who at least some of the time coincided London their home, had not occurred to them until that very instant.
Marlene shrugged. "When we're old enough, why not? Never mind," she continued, waving her hands in front of her face, as if trying to disperse the words hanging in the air, "kiss me again".
***
Remus looked up from his mashed potatoes just long enough to locate the pitcher of pumpkin juice on the Gryffindor table in the great hall, jab an arm across Peter's plate to retrieve it, and pour himself a glass, before retreating back into the fortress of his mind, and the potatoes in front of him.
His knee ached. It mustn't have healed right, despite the best efforts of Madame Pomfrey, and it had bothered him ever since. With any luck, it would break again at the next full moon, and maybe then it would also heal right. Either that, or it'd be damaged beyond repair, and Poppy would have to fuse it in place. Until the next time he broke it.
Of course, since the other Marauders had started joining him in the Shrieking Shack during full moons, the injuries he sustained on those nights had diminished greatly, now that he wasn't confined to the one room in which the wolf would throw itself against the walls, bite and scratch itself, until its skin tore and its bones cracked.
Not having to spend the days after the Moon in the hospital wing was still new.
He was snapped out of his ponderous fortress, suddenly, by the boisterous arrival of Sirius and Marlene.
The pair had been joined at the hip since that night they'd all smoked together in the common room, now their arrival was heralded with a chorus of giggles, which followed them like a tidal wave from the grand entrance to their chosen place at the Gryffindor table - immediately opposite Remus. He rolled his eyes to himself.
"Where have you been?"
"Nowhere", Marlene blushed.
"Snogging", Sirius grinned in unison with her answer.
Remus rolled his eyes again, not bothering to hide it this time.
"Jamie's looking for you, he's already headed to the pitch, you don't have time to eat dinner now." The young werewolf said, sullenly, not taking his eyes off his plate while he did so.
Marlene and Sirius exchanged questioning glances, but when Remus didn't elaborate it was Marlene's turn to roll her eyes.
"OK, grumpy-gus! But if you don't hurry up and finish yours you're going to miss the match, too!"
And with that she leaned over the table and snatched two buttered baps, kissed Sirius on the cheek, shoved one bap into her mouth and jogged off to hook arms with Dorcas, who had got up to leave herself soon after their entrance into the hall.
Sirius remained where they stood, watching their friend poke at his potatoes with concern.
Remus, again without looking up, reminded them:
"You are going to be late, Padfoot." But Sirius didn't move.
"What's wrong, Moony?" they leaned closer over the table, propping themself up on their elbows and lowered their voice a tad, "are you feeling OK?"
Remus looked up then, finally, and upon seeing the genuine concern in his friend's face, which was now hovering above his own from across the table, framed by their fine, aristocratic hands, and he suddenly felt guilty. He was being an arse, and he didn't even know why. Well, he knew why - his friends locking lips at all hours of the day annoyed him, immensely - but he was not about to open that particular can of worms right now. Right now he was being unfair and he knew it, so he schooled his expression into a tired but friendly smile.
"I'm fine, my knee is bugging me, it's making me grumpy," but Sirius looked unconvinced, cocking an eyebrow in challenge to his half-truth.
"Look," Remus continued, "I'll be down now in a minute, I promise, I'm good."
For a few more seconds Sirius' grey eyes searched their friend's face for clues of deception, but eventually they seemed to resign themself to being kept in the dark, lowered their hands and laced their fingers together on the table, leaning in further by raising themself on their knees on the bench seat.
Remus was beginning to feel uncomfortable under the scrutiny of his friend's intense gaze. They were too close, they were in his space, and they were looking at him so intensely that he began to feel exposed, as if they could see right through him like a stained glass window. He didn't have time to react when Sirius suddenly lurched forwards, but froze in place, as a tuft of their choppy hair brushed his cheek, sending his face burning and his fingers cold.
The scent of expensive soap and autumn air flooded his senses, and without thinking about it, he turned his face slightly, and realised then that he was practically touching his freckled nose to the pink shell of Sirius' ear, just as the latter let their warm breath fan over his neck, whispering:
"I don't believe you." Before quickly pushing off the table, landing gracefully on their feet on the stone floor.
Through the rushing of his own heartbeat in his ears, he only just heard Sirius continuing, "but I do not have time to pry right now, so I will see you at the celebration, after we wipe the pitch with Ravenclaw."