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When they were small it had been different.
When they were children, it had been because one of them had a nightmare, as was usually the case with Remus Lupin.
Or when James Potter was homesick, or Peter Pettigrew had wet the bed.
That was when they had used to slip through the scarlet drapes and into each other's beds, under the cover of darkness, and whisper a hushed apology as the other moved aside to make space.
They were little then, and their beds in the Gryffindor dormitory had seemed more spacious.
Peter had not wet his bed in years, and James was never homesick anymore; even Remus' nightmares had become less frequent since the others had joined him in the Shrieking Shack on full moon nights.
Since that afternoon, however, an ominous atmosphere had settled over Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Really, it had come creeping up on them for months - years, perhaps - until the wizards who sympathized with Lord Voldemort had grown bold. They had become brazen, more overt, and they had started harassing muggles in their communities. They no longer hid in the shadows, and the word "mudblood" was no longer hissed under breath, but said with vitriol and conviction.
The Marauders had mocked them, sometimes mercilessly, especially Severus Snape and especially once he too had become involved with the more vocal would-be Deatheaters, but it had lost much of its appeal as amusement. It had taken on a darker, more serious tone.
Students on opposing sides no longer jinxed and teased each other, they hexed and hauled insults - there had been fist fights, James and Sirius had been jumped by Rosier and a group of students from Regulus' year - and eventually the word "expulsion" had been bandied around by concerned teachers.
However, the headmaster argued that sending the children home would only radicalise them further, as well as their parents, and further drive a wedge between Voldemort's pureblood supremacists and Dumbledore's own liberal academics. On the other hand, muggle parents had started taking their children out of school, accusing the headmaster of carelessness and risking their children's safety in favour of some greater good that would never materialise.
They did not attempt to blame their altercation with Severus, on the bank of the Black Lake, on the rising tensions as such - their rivalry went back much further than that, to the point that if they were to be completely honest, most of their justifications were after-constructions now - but the straw that broke the camel's back had been hearing the boy call Lily Evans a "mudblood".
The hatred in his voice had been palpable. Hatred masking hurt and humiliation, but sincere nonetheless, throwing in her face the years of support and friendship they had shared. She had cursed him, stormed off, and James had lost her in the ensuing melee. He and Remus had looked for her when she didn't come to dinner, but with no luck, and the thought of Severus spending the night in the hospital wing dabbing foul-smelling potion on the boils on his face didn't do anything to soothe his concern.
Now he padded barefoot across the floorboards to Sirius' bed, carefully parted the draperies and ducked inside, crouching halfway on the bedside, halfway hovering off it.
"Sirius?"
He lifted the edge of the covers, preparing to slip underneath, but stopped as he exposed his friend's shoulder. Sirius was facing away from him, their top half undressed under the covers, and draped over their shoulder blade, the unmistakably scarred arm of Remus Lupin.
James froze for a second, just as a tawny head of curls appeared over the sleek black head of hair that belonged to Sirius; amber eyes blinking against the moonlight, reflecting it back at him like a cat in the dark. Or a fox. A wolf.
"Jamie..?"
"Shit, sorry, I thought… I couldn't sleep."
Without turning around or even opening their eyes Sirius wiggled closer to Remus, pressing themself against his chest, and reached out behind them for James, mumbling into the werewolf’s tattered vest;.
"Jamie, come join…"
And, before he could object or excuse himself and leave, he found himself pulled head first onto the bed, face smushed up into Sirius' pillow.
They couldn't move an inch, of course, the bed was not made to fit three teenagers, even the ganglier kind, yet they stayed there for a few moments, intertwined with each other, uncomfortable on the crowded single bed, but comforted by the shared warmth and the sound of each other's breathing.
Until Remus felt compelled to break the otherwise comfortable silence.
"Hey… I'm about to fall out of the bed."
"Ok, look…" James shifted out of the bed and settled on the floor next to it, legs tucked underneath him.
Sirius turned over in the bed to face him, pulling Remus' arm with them to help him back onto the bed fully.
Remus, however, took the opportunity to scoot up into sitting. Leaning against the headboard, he took a throw cushion off the floor, nestled it in his lap, arms wrapped prospectively around it.
"We're getting too big for this." came Peter's voice from over James' shoulder.
"Speak for yourself, Wormtail," James quipped, throwing a cheeky grin over his shoulder at the chubby Marauder in an attempt to lighten the solemn mood that had settled in the dormitory since the afternoon.
"He meant we're getting too old , Prongs!" Sirius swatted at him.
"No, I meant what I said, we're getting too big - Moony is probably six foot tall already - and no points for calling me fat, I handed it to you." Peter gave the young man a faux-kick before climbing onto the foot of Sirius' bed.
The latter pulled their legs up to make room for him.
"You're not fat, Pete…" James tried to back-pedal.
"I didn't say it was a bad thing," Peter rolled his eyes.
James tried again:
"No, I mean, back in the day being fat was a good thing, right? 'Cause it meant you had plenty of food, or something, or that you were rich, right?"
"I don't have to justify myself to you, mate, especially not by some dusty old back-in-the-day standards. I like myself the way I am, by the way. We can't all be sculpted like a brown Adonis, let me fat in peace."
He stretched his leg out and poked James once again.
"Adonis was probably quite brown anyway," Remus supplied, "the Greek story about Adonis and Aphrodite likely comes from the Mesopotamian myth of Inanna and Dumuzid…"
With that, he had to interrupt his spiel and duck behind his throw cushion, as the others rained boo's, pillows and slippers on him until he giggling squealed his resignation.
" Will you four pipe down, for the love of Merlin! "
For a beat, complete silence fell over the room. The Marauders exchanged looks, first of guilt for having woken up their friend, then of amusement at the situation, before replying in unison:
"Sorry Frank!"
***
When they were small it had been different, they were as thick as thieves then. The Black siblings protected each other, from their parents, their cruel cousin, boggarts and ghouls and big spiders in the bathroom.
But lately, Sirius felt like their brother was pulling away from them.
They had felt hopeful in the beginning of the summer, looking forward to spending time at the Potter estate, without the influence of their parents, cousins, or the likes of the Carrows.
But it wasn't to be.
As Orion and Walburga Black had "business" to attend to in France, they had forbidden their children from visiting their friends, claiming they would worry about them not being properly looked after, were they to leave London, and the care of their trusted house elf Kreacher.
The real reason, as Sirius argued, was that they were uncomfortable leaving them with people they deemed to be "blood traitors".
Orion had had no qualms about correcting his heir's assessment, that yes, the loose attitude to blood purity traditions was indeed one aspect of their opposition to the Potters, but on top of that, the elder Black did not appreciate the "queer affectations" his child would exhibit upon returning, not only from the Potters, but from school as well.
No doubt due to the influence of "that crackpot headmaster and the freaks he employs to teach you", Orion had asserted. And compounded by the "weak specimens of wizardry" that Sirius called friends.
And it had all started when the heir to the Ancient and Moste Noble House of Black had been sorted into Gryffindor, thus breaking a long line of proud Slytherin alumni. Even his older brother Alphard, as odd as he was, had been a Slytherin, he had lamented.
At least Regulus had had the good sense to make friends of high birth, pure of blood and established political influence.
Apparently, Sirius' response of plastering the walls of their room with pictures of bikini-clad muggle women in a satirical display of exaggerated masculinity, was not the desired effect their father had hoped to evoke with his speech, and in actuality it served to further cement the house arrest.
Walburga had suggested that her older child be confined not only to the house, but to their room entirely, and had made good on her threat in so much as she had body-bind hexed the teenager and levitated them up the stairs herself. Rather than placing her child in their room to let the hex wear off, she simply flung them in there, slammed the door, and put a series of spells on the lock.
It was several hours later, when the master and mistress of the house had departed for France, that Kreacher unlocked the door and declared that sandwiches and tea were to be served in the parlour.
Sirius threw a boot at his head, but the house elf was too quick, and disappeared with a pop before the projectile reached him.
The problem with body-binding curses is that when you're flung, your body doesn't go limp, rather, you land quite hard, as well as bounce.
Regulus was sitting at the tea table, gazing out of the large front windows covered in rain and condensation, when Sirius came limping into the parlour, a wet flannel pressed to the side of their head.
"Thank you for standing up for me back there," they muttered sarcastically.
"Sirius!" Regulus spun around and stood up, his chair scraping against the hardwood floor. "You have got to stop it." Desperation, perhaps fear, clear in his voice.
"No, you have to stop cowering to them!" They marched up to the table, slamming the flannel down on it and pinning their brother with a glare.
"Just do as they ask, they will not stop punishing you until you do."
"They are asking me to betray my friends, to make enemies of the people I love, to deny who I am." Their glare had gone cold, eyes dark under their lashes.
"And what is that? A queer and a transvestite? Why can't you just be normal , for Salazar's sake, Sirius, you are my brother, I need you!" Anger mixed with the fear in his voice as the younger Black sibling slammed the flats of his hands against the table top.
"Curse you, Reggie!" Sirius pushed off the table hard enough that it wobbled under Regulus' hands. They stalked off towards the fireplace, where they spun around once more.
"Curse you for saying that! How dare you? You know me, I am the same as I always was, you are the one who's changed."
" There is going to be a war , brother! Don't you see that!? I need you by my side!"
" I would DIE rather than betray my friends ! If there is going to be a war, then so be it, but I will fight by my friends’ side in it, and I will do it with or without you." Gritting their teeth they grabbed a handful of Floo powder from the mantelpiece. "I didn't choose to be what I am - did you know gender-specific spells don't work on me? - you can choose to have me by your side, but it won't be this side."
With that they threw the powder into the fireplace And disappeared into the green flames.
***
They could hear the bass tones through the closed windows before they'd even entered the house, and as they made their way up the stairs they could make out the immutable vocal stylings of Freddie Mercury coming from inside the small flat.
Inside they were greeted by Andromeda, who was half dressed in a skirt over her slip, glass of wine in one hand, a cigarette between her fingers, hair straighteners in the other, and a giggling yellow-haired toddler wrapped around her leg.
"Hi! Come in, come in, hang on a minute…" she turned around and yelled into the flat, "honey, come take Dora, my cousin's here!"
Ted Tonks came rushing out into the small hallway and scooped the child, who was still squealing joyously, into his arms.
He was dressed, as he always was, casually handsome if not a bit dorky, heavier than last time Sirius had seen him, but just as friendly and open.
"Welcome, young people, come on in! I'm afraid we've already made quite a mess, but feel free to contribute."
They followed the young family into the lounge - Sirius, James, Remus, Peter, Mary, Marlene, Dorcas and Lily - all trying not to step on the many cats that lay about the place, seemingly unbothered by the noise and the crowd.
There, under another couple of cats, sat an elderly wizard, contentedly watching the chaos. He looked up when he saw them, and his face lit up. He opened his arms, an invitation to an embrace.
"Sirius, my child!"
"Uncle Alphard!" Sirius traversed the obstacle course of a room to give the old man a big hug. "It's so good to see you, how are you?"
"Old." Alphard lamented, "Old and frail, my love, but not too old to entertain my favourite children, and all their friends."
Sirius, slightly embarrassed by the near faux pas, introduced their friends to their uncle and cousin, the latter of whom were already handing out mugs of wine to the guests, who exchanged excited looks as they took their first sips.
"I'm sorry, Al, I didn't realise we were gonna make such a mess," Ted said sheepishly, Dora bouncing on his arm, he turned to the teenagers, "Alphard and Gregory have graciously agreed to watch Nymphadora for the night."
"Affa!" the toddler agreed, her hair turning bright green as she happily kicked her father in the stomach.
"Alphard and Gregory ?" Marlene nudged Dorcas excitedly and the two giggled quietly to each other.
"Sssh, don't be rude," a red-faced Mary hissed.
"Says the girl who used 'homosexual' as a verb !" Marlene, her face red too, from holding in laughter at her own joke, couldn't help herself.
And neither could the three boys, who up until now had stood quietly sipping their wine. Now they snorted their badly concealed amusement in unison, James even having to spit back a mouthful of wine into his cup to stop it coming out his nose.
Lily hid her face in her free hand.
"Godrick's sake!" she muttered.
But Mary's embarrassment was saved by the entrance of a large, jovial man, with an equally large, jovial laughter.
"Now, dear girl, don't you worry, it's all in good fun. We need to stick together, us funny folk." Gregory chuckled, wrapping an arm around Mary and giving her a hearty squeeze, before winking knowingly at Marlene and Dorcas.
"Now where's my favourite little piglet?"
He took the child out of Ted Tonks' arms and made a pig noise at her, which she reciprocated with stunning accuracy, as her little nose turned into a pig-snout, her hair turning a dusty pink. An impressed "oooh" spread through the assembled crowd.
"She's a Metamorphmagus," Remus whispered, "that's why her hair changes colour."
"Indeed," Gregory chuckled, tickling the child's round little belly, "and a prettier piglet the world has never seen."
The teenagers watched the old man hoist the little girl in the air, enthralled by her melodic laughter, until Andromeda broke them out of their spell.
She was dressed now; having added tights, boots and a t-shirt with Debbie Harry's face on, dramatic eyeliner and newly straightened hair.
"Are you lot gonna change at all? The bus is in forty-five minutes."
A frantic shuffle ensued, as the teenage witches hurried into the crowded lounge.
Remus, James and Peter hung back, knowing better than getting in the way of this particular freight train. Besides, they were already quite happy to head out into the London summer in blue jeans and polo shirts. Of course, Remus, the perpetually long-sleeved, could not be persuaded to leave his too-large knitted jumper. It was moth-eaten and unravelled in places - He didn't wear it for warmth after all - but Andromeda assured him that the ratty old number would fit right in.
The other two, however…
"James, you look like a brown Bruce Springsteen, can I at least spike your hair?" Mary sighed, pulling a simple black dress and red dress out of her purse, "Sirius, do you want to borrow this or shall I wear it?"
"No thank you", Sirius called back from somewhere.
"Why do I always have to be 'the brown' somebody?" James muttered into his mug.
"What shoes are you wearing, Mary?" Lily groped inside a purse of her own, reaching into it as far as her arm would go.
"The boots," Mary answered, "the boots and this dress it is!"
"Do you know any Indian musicians that look like Bruce Springsteen?" Peter asked James quietly, then louder into the room:
"Who do I look like, Mary?"
"John Denver," came the reply from elsewhere in the flat, "Sirius, Marlene, I need the bathroom mirror!"
Peter shrugged; "I'll take that."
"Fat John Denver…" muttered James.
But he soon had a change of mood when Lily reappeared, having changed into a pair of snug v-jeans, and a Runaways t-shirt that she'd tied in a knot at the waist. She stepped into her worn basketball shoes, throwing her long, red hair over one shoulder so that she could see to tie them.
"Cat got your tongue, Potter?" Dorcas smirked, winking at the stunned young man as she led her giggling girlfriend by the hand past him.
He tried giving them a warning glare, but that only elevated their giggles to out loud laughter, echoing down the stairwell.
"Wine got to you already, Prongs? That's a gorgeous colour on you my deer ."
Sirius sauntered over to the other three Marauders, pulling on a well-worn leather jacket. They were wearing a pair of jeans and biker boots, all of which were hand-me-downs from their cousin, except for the washed-out mesh vest, which belonged to their uncle.
"What?" Sirius smiled hesitantly, giving the outfit a once over.
James and Peter had followed the girls downstairs when Sirius had made their way over, but Remus stood frozen by the open door as Sirius checked their now shoulder-length hair in the hallway mirror.
Having been called upon, the young werewolf suddenly looked sheepish.
"Nothing! Nothing, you look good. Tonight. You look good tonight."
Sirius said nothing, but their hesitant smile widened into a dazzling grin, and with a bright pink hue staining their cheeks, they gestured for the lanky young man to go before them out of the door.
After saying goodbye to the two old men and the baby, Ted and Andromeda filed out after them down the stairs and towards the bus stop, bound for London proper.