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Sirius Black never pretended he was a good person. Ever since he saw James sitting in the Hogwarts Express in his neat new robes and his coiffed hair, Sirius knew he had to have him for himself. James was beautiful, pureblood, rich, and just exactly Sirius's age. Their families didn't run in the same circles, but the Potters were important enough that Sirius heard their name passed around the dining room table at home. He knew of James the same way he knew of the children of other well-to-do families, as potential allies that were to be kept at arm's length. Close enough to use but not enough to taint the bloodlines.
Regulus was always better at knowing who to befriend, at what to say at what functions so that even at eight years old, their mother was already preparing him to take over the family. She never had hopes for Sirius, always thought him handsome but too wild, too angry, too inconsiderate of the family. He was always almost, but not quite, the son she needed to present to the world.
His mother, with all her passive aggressive commentary, thinking him too rebellious for a family full of Dark Arts supporters, will never stop being funny. Especially when she sends him to Hogwarts and he runs into James Potter, with his neat hair and his brown eyes, and that cold expression on his face when he realizes who Sirius is.
"Can I sit here?" Sirius asks.
"No," James says.
Sirius can hear his mother telling him to find another compartment, to find his cousins. Her voice echoes in his head as he stares at James, so pristine, not a hair out of place. He looks like a doll, buffed to an unnatural perfection, every inch of his expression arrogant and pampered. Sirius can tell that, like him, James is used to getting what he wants, so he takes a seat and watches the wary expression on James's face.
"I said no," James says.
But Sirius puts his feet up on the seat in front of him, his robes open messily as he leans his head against the headrest. He's watching James from underneath his lashes, watching that handsome face and thinking that he's meant to make attractive friends. It's only right given what Sirius looks like, given that Regulus gets to be the golden boy, the wanted son. If handsome is all Sirius gets, then handsome is what he will be, all of him, from the lowest of his friends to James Potter, easily the most beautiful boy in this entire train.
"We should be friends," Sirius says.
James turns an unimpressed look his way and says, "no."
"We should though," Sirius presses. "Because you don't like me, I can tell, but I like you. And just think of how fun that will be."
He smiles disarmingly when James looks his way again, a wide open grin that reaches the corners of his eyes, the one that makes him look a little deranged. His mother hates it because she says it reminds her of the look on her father's face the day he died. When she's in a bad mood, she'll tell him that good looks can only get a person so far, that when he loses that, there will be nothing he can offer the people around him to make them stay.
"So I'll have to go young then, Mum," he'll say, flashing that too big smile, with too many teeth and not enough mirth.
"You're out of your mind," his mother will say.
"Absolutely mental, aren't you?" James says.
-
The first thing Sirius smells in the Amortentia is the waxy scent of petroleum jelly, a thick waft of water-downed honey, like the remains of melted candles. He knows it's Sleekeazy's without anyone telling him. He'd know the scent anywhere, interspersed as it is among James's belongings. Just absolutely everywhere in their bedroom, because Mrs Potter always sneaks a bottle in with James's things before classes start, and James refuses to use it. He leaves it out in the open at the beginning of the year, and as the months pass, the bottle falls and spills, goes from their dormitory to their bathroom to Remus's bed to Peter's. Until eventually, James gets tired and stuffs it back into his things, only for the bottle to burst and get everywhere. They do it every year and every year, James pretends like he didn't know it would happen.
He smells like the stuff for at least a week, refusing to let anyone spell it off, saying it's what they all deserve for betraying him that way. Sirius thought he reeked of it today, had complained about it before their lesson started as they ignored the cauldrons up at the front. But Slughorn said one of the potions was Amortentia and Sirius can smell Sleekeazy's everywhere, that scent thick and heavy, making him dizzy.
He knows what it means.
"What is it, Padfoot?" James asks, leaning in, peering at Sirius's face, and frowning. "You look a bit peaky."
"Fucking Amortentia," Sirius says, wrinkling his nose. "Smells terrible."
James frowns and inhales slowly. "Dunno," he says. "Smells a bit like the cologne you like to wear."
"You mean the one you buy me every time there's even the faintest excuse," he says, grinning wide, too many teeth, too much mirth.
-
Sirius is fifteen when James hands him the bottle of cologne. He tosses it over like he doesn't care where it lands, the glass clinking against Sirius's nails as he fumbles the catch. In the end, he just manages to hold onto the clear bottle, with its amber liquid that breaks into different shades of brown when it catches the light. There's a label on the front with the logo scratched off, so that Sirius can't tell the name of the perfumer or the contents of the bottle. He turns it in his hands, watching as the liquid sloshes around inside, wondering what he's meant to do with such a gift.
It means something. Even if only that Sirius is a little too proprietary with his friends, with James especially. He can't pretend that he hasn't staked a claim there, that he hasn't hounded James for every bit of his attention, bleeding him dry until there's nothing left for anyone else. He allows Remus and Peter in only because Sirius likes them, because they like him. Because, even when they're around, he has James's undivided attention.
He's selfish when it comes to James, but he has never pretended otherwise.
This gift is a first, a deviation from the usual chocolate exchange, each of them trying to outdo the other in terms of most unique flavours. This year Sirius brought morning-dew-flavoured truffles from Brussels. The box is still open by Peter's bed where all the chocolates they don't like end up eventually. But James brought cologne, unwrapped, with all the labels peeled off, so that even if Sirius wanted to, he wouldn't know where to get more.
In fairness, that means that if Sirius hates it, there's no way for him to know the price or just how expensive his next gift to James has to be. But it also means that if he likes the gift, only James will know where to get it. He'll have to depend solely on James for this.
That means something.
It means that no matter what's in that glass bottle, he'll wear nothing else for as long as he lives. And perhaps he's staked a claim he has no right to. Perhaps he pushes too hard, wants too much. Perhaps he's as entitled as everyone says, just as arrogant as his mother.
Perhaps, they are one and the same, after all.
-
The second smell is as easy as breathing. It's the wet dirt smell of freshly mown grass, wafting over as Sirius sits next to James and copies down notes. It reminds him of walks across the grounds to their favourite tree, the wind blowing their cloaks out behind them as they shove each other playfully. When he inhales deep, he can almost picture the Potter's backyard, that wide open space that gives way to the endless hills in the distance. He can almost hear James's breathless laughter in his ear, the way it sounded over the last Easter holidays, that cadence to his voice as he asked Sirius to follow him.
He doesn't need Slughorn's notes on the chalkboard to know that he's in love with James. To know that the swirls coming from the cauldron at the front reassemble the curls of James's hair. He doesn't need the last smell to know that everything about it will be James Potter.
He inhales, letting the scent of freshly mown grass wash over him. He can still smell the Sleekeazy's underneath, but as he waits, he begins to catch a whiff of the last scent. It stings his nose, something sharp and potent. He breathes in, knows that James is watching him intently. They both know what the potion does, what it means that James smelled Sirius's cologne.
They can go slow. After all, Sirius has been waiting the better part of his Hogwarts school career for this moment.
He sighs, feeling James's stare on the side of his face. "Spit it out, Prongs," he says, his voice so low, for once, that James has to lean in to hear.
He's warm everywhere he's touching Sirius, the bare skin of his arm burning where it meets Sirius's hand.
"I smell your shampoo," he says, eyes wide. "The cologne, and something like—"
"Fire," Sirius agrees.
He can pick it apart from all the other scents now, a smouldering like the embers in a fireplace, low and simmering. It's what remains after a fire goes out, just ash and the phantom heat of a once raging fire.
"I smell it, too," Sirius says.
-
Sirius's mother consumes, her anger and her rage blinding him until he's wandering around in the dark, reaching for an escape that he can never find. She makes him want to break things, to grab everything she's ever loved and hurl them against her tapestries, to yank down the bed hangings and the curtains, and destroy everything that's ever mattered to her. She drowns him and he responds in kind, throwing in her face all the places where he doesn't belong.
See, Mother, he seems to say, as he hangs up picture after picture of half-naked Muggle women. I am like them, stagnant, unmovable.
But his mother is wise. She ignores his rebellion, eyes his room with detached curiosity, as though he is an interesting creature, no more bothersome than the dirt at the bottom of her shoe. She doesn't fight him about the Muggle photos. He is a lost cause, after all.
He rages in the only way he knows how, plasters images of his friends on every inch of his bedroom. He takes all the pictures of James he can find and puts him everywhere, covers every inch of his wall until he's shaking with how much he wants James next to him. He aches in a way that speaks of homesickness. This horrible pang in his chest that can only be soothed by the sound of James's laughter.
He feels it at sixteen, the summer before his sixth year at Hogwarts, the beginnings of a fire. He could turn to ash in all his anger, in that all-consuming emotion that grips every inch of his being and refuses to let go. He is ravenous.
He wants to take everything and ravage it, to rip it apart and destroy it, to claim it. He wants his family home to burn to the ground so that his mother has nothing. So that Regulus has nothing. So that at the end of the day, Sirius has to go to James, has to beg him to let Sirius stay.
See, James, he would say. Everything I own is gone. You're the only thing I have left.
And if James made the mistake of letting him in, Sirius would take it all, every last bit of James that he could have. Because at the end of the day, he is not unlike his mother.
He too knows how to consume.
-
Sirius doesn't fall in love with James all at once.
Not quite.
It happens in doses, these small parenthetical instances of time, like the lingering pauses between two people sharing a secret.
Sirius stakes a claim in their first year when he gets sorted into Gryffindor, knowing full well that James Potter will take the seat next to him. When he does, they bump elbows, Sirius grinning wide and carefree, all of his boyish mischievousness on full display. He wants James to like him.
He can't explain it. He only knows that he was lying in the train compartment. There is nothing interesting about him liking a boy who hates him. It's sad and pathetic and aches in a familiar way that Sirius can't place yet.
"Welcome to Gryffindor," he says, wanting the pain in his chest to go away. "I hear we're all very brave here."
James narrows his eyes. "I still don't know if I like you," he says.
"That's all right," Sirius says. "My mum doesn't either."
*
He doesn't mean to take James away from the others. But James is the first person who likes Sirius, who listens to him, who touches him like he means every press of his fingers. James throws his arms around him as though there's nothing wrong with the way they walk pressed together, heads bent close.
They become one, this wild and reckless ball of energy that thrives in their classmates' cheers. Effortlessly handsome, they walk side by side, unattainable, beautiful, whole. No matter how many people surround them. No matter how much they clamor for his attention, Sirius has eyes for no one but James.
It's not love, exactly. Not when they're thirteen or fourteen. Not when the awkwardness of puberty overshadows all else.
It's a claim. As though Sirius has a right to be by James's side. As though he is owed something. As though this handsome boy with the unruly hair and the wire-framed glasses belongs to him.
He wants him.
He wants James's undivided attention, his time, his friendship. He wants it given freely. He wants James to want it as much as he does, to prove that he won't go away. That he will stay with Sirius, that he too feels that bond between them, unshakeable, permanent.
He wants James more than he has ever wanted anything else in his whole life.
-
When they're sixteen, Sirius has kissed James exactly five times. The first was for practice, so that James could ask out Lily Evans and not come off as an inexperienced tosser if she said yes. The second time was after she said no, when James sat on his bed and moped so much, Sirius had no choice but to distract him.
He kissed James because to do anything else seemed impossible.
The third time they kissed, it was during the Easter Holidays, with the wind blowing James's hair in every direction, as they climbed down the hills at Godric's Hollow. They kissed at the bottom, with the smell of fresh grass seeping into their jackets. James's nose was cold where it pressed against Sirius's cheek, but his mouth was warm, hot even, as he kissed Sirius.
The fourth time was at the beginning of their sixth year, when James walked into Sirius's compartment on the Hogwarts Express. He looked so different, more filled out, less soft around the edges, that it took a second for Sirius to welcome him. When he did, it was with the usual smirk, that quirk of his mouth that preceded his most annoying smiles.
James didn't answer with his usual eye roll. He stared and stared and stared, until Sirius started to worry that something was wrong. Then, James crossed the distance between them, grabbed Sirius's face, kissed him as hard as he could, and walked away.
The fifth time was just before Potions, both of them fumbling for purchase against the stone castle walls, neither of them paying attention to the thundering footsteps just outside the classroom door. Sirius kissed as though he'd never have enough of James. Because he meant it when he said he was just like his mother.
He was born to devour.
-
"What do you smell in the Amortentia?" James asks.
Sirius blinks at him and doesn't know how to say, be ready, because he meant it when he said that if James let him in, he was never letting go. But they look at each other and it occurs to Sirius that perhaps James already knows, already feels the same simmering fire in his chest. It's easy then, to smile, something soft, something sweet, that dangerous edge filed away.
"I smell you," Sirius says. "Us."