Chapter Text
“Peter, you are a child.”
“I'm a child? You’re the one who’s not respecting the rules!”
“They’re made-up rules!” Sirius protested.
“All rules are made up!”
The dorm arrangement had been a cause for fighting ever since their first day at Hogwarts University. As soon as Sirius had asked to be placed in the Lion building in order to share a dorm with his newly found mate James, Peter knew he would have to share him. That first term, Sirius took the room with James’ things in it and Peter would not let that go. I’m his childhood best friend, who are you again?
But Sirius did not surrender. Instead, he threw half of his belongings on the bed next to Potter’s with a straight face, and that was the end of it. They agreed then that in order to compromise, they would alternate the sleeping arrangements each semester. Remus, on his part, had been the new guy, a stranger to the awkward trio, so he didn’t think he had a say in the matter.
Now it was the second term of their second year, and therefore Peter’s turn to share James’ room — if Sirius could just stick to the rules.
The dorm had two bedrooms, each fit for two students and connected through a small common area and a bathroom. Remus always believed it to be plenty of room, if not too much space, for only four college students, but that was only when none of them was having a fit like this. Peter was yelling very loudly, and Sirius, although controlling his voice to sound detached and above the matter, was betrayed by the angry redness of his face.
“James!” Peter and Sirius snapped in unison, like toddlers asking for parental mediation.
The young man shook his head and continued to unpack his clothes. Remus had unpacked hours ago and was currently reading in their shared area.
“As much as I love you fighting over me, this has to end eventually,” James said, still not dignifying the quarrelling duo with his full attention.
Peter crossed his arms over his chest. “It ends with Sirius following the rules.”
“When have I ever?” Black retorted.
“Please, continue, I don’t mind, must be a nightmare to be stuck with me,” Remus said sarcastically.
“Yeah, you’re being rude to Remus,” James agreed.
As much as both Sirius and Peter enjoyed sharing a room with tidy, perfectionist Remus, this was about their never-ending competition for James’ number one friend position. Or rather, at this point, it was about Peter’s unyielding persistence and Sirius’ need to always get his way.
“How about Remus and I share a dorm for a change?” James proposed a solution to the problem.
“And have these two at each other’s throats every two seconds?” Remus pointed out and shook his head. “No, thanks.”
And so the discussion went on — ‘you wake up as late as Remus does, James and I have the same sleeping schedules’ had no real grounds against a very convincing ‘see how I care’, and eventually, Remus decided to lock himself in his half-empty room in order to muffle the sound of retort after retort. He plugged on his earphones and focused on reading, time passing by until he didn’t notice when the yelling stopped. He only knew the fight had been settled when a very sorrowful-looking Peter entered the room, dragging his bags behind him.
Remus detached his earphones and gave him a grin. “Cheer up, Pete, you get a whole new semester free of James’ farts.”
The blonde shrugged. “Yeah, I just hate letting Sirius win.”
“He has a way,” Remus had to agree.
Peter’s down mood did not last more than a few seconds, as he was already opening his backpack enthusiastically, excited to show its contents to his roommate. “Their loss — check this out.” He smiled proudly while exhibiting a plastic bag full of freshly bought marihuana buds.
Remus’ face lit up. “You beauty,” he congratulated Peter, earning a smile from the blonde.
“I’ll start working on our secret snack stash tomorrow.”
“Good man.”
Private Chat
(Remus, sirius blk)
sirius blk: how upset is he
Remus: he’ll be ok
Remus: he’s being a sweetheart about this
Remus: like he always is
Remus: unlike others
sirius blk: yeah I felt kinda bad
Remus: bad enough to take it back?
sirius blk: fuck no lmao
sirius blk: sides I already unpacked half of my stuff
Remus: that’s fast
Remus: are you so desperate to avoid being my roommate?
sirius blk: awww come on moony
sirius blk: u know ur my favourite ❤️
sirius blk: we can still make a blanket fort by the couch!!
Remus: yes sirius I understand the reference, you made me watch community
Remus: we *are* Troy and Abed I get it
sirius blk: those two were hella gay and no one can convince me otherwise
Remus: haha
Remus: no I’m not so sure
Down at the Lion building cafeteria, the four young men were stuffing their faces with mild-temperature dinner of questionable quality, while they exchanged each other’s phone screens to compare schedules and classes. They had all taken the same political debate course, after Remus had mentioned taking it with his girlfriends, Lily, Mary and Marlene — and only because he had described it as practically a blow-off class, almost entirely based on participation points.
“Oh, we have another class together!” Sirius pointed out. “Classics and modernization.”
“But that’s a lit course.”
“Elective for me,” Sirius explained. “Thought it was cool enough until I found out they meant book classics.”
“It’s what you get for not reading the syllabus before taking it.”
“Whatever, it’s about movie adaptations and whatnot.”
Remus frowned. “Yeah, I don’t love the ‘creative workshops’ part.”
He knew that the vague description found in the syllabus probably meant they would eventually have to film a short film or something of that sort. It wasn’t just Sirius who was beginning to regret taking that course.
“But that’s the best part!” Sirius urged him to be as excited as he was when it came to creative workshops. Leave it to a film major to have one sole interest, borderline obsession, and despise anything else that didn’t have to do with a camera. “Tell you what, you read the books, I do the creative part,” he offered.
“Already read most of them, Sirius, they’re classics,” Remus said like it was obvious.
“Then you’ve done your part of the job, so cheer up.”
Remus fought the urge to roll his eyes at his friend, and decided that maybe sharing a literature course with one of his dormmates for once would be a fun experience. So he nodded, sceptically, and turned his attention to somebody else at the table. He noticed James’ dream-like expression while concentrating on a spot across the room. Peter was too busy gulping down a bowl of mushroom soup like he hadn’t been fed the entire holidays to notice James’ state, but Remus saw his sad frown and lost eyes.
“Alright, mate?” he asked.
Potter sighed, almost cartoonishly. “Why doesn’t she like me?”
At that moment the other three friends knew who he was referring to. They all averted their eyes to the end of the room, where, to no surprise, Lily Evans was sitting, accompanied by her friends. Mary and Marlene were nice enough, fun, and witty, but when it came to Evans, Remus was the only one who got to her. She was broadly referred to as ‘intense’, but it took getting to know her a bit better to find out she had the biggest heart and nicest laugh. Perhaps that was what had James in a trance.
“She does like you, she just doesn’t want to date you,” Remus corrected him.
As it turns out, James had asked her on a date before. Their first term in college, he had immediately taken a liking to the redhead, and the more he saw her from across the cafeteria, the more he felt like there was no one else for him. Everyone else thought he was being overdramatic, but perhaps intense-Lily would enjoy such declarations. She agreed to a date reluctantly, because she didn’t like James’ personality much, but his looks and good manners definitely made it worth the chance. Unfortunately, the date had gone so horribly that James came back mortified and defeated. I have never made such a fool of myself before, never!
Now Lily chose to be polite to James even though she found him a little annoying — and she found the four boys, when they were all together, very annoying. But she chose peace, because she was friends with Remus, just like her dorm mates Mary and Marlene were. All of them seemed to think Remus was too good for the other three numbnuts — his marauders — and had no shame in telling him so, even though Remus just laughed it off and claimed to be just as much of a numbnuts as James, Sirius and Peter. Maybe not just as much as Sirius, but still.
“You have got to move on,” Sirius sighed, a little disappointed in his friend.
“I wish I could!” James protested. “There’s no one like her.”
“There’re plenty of redheads in the world.”
Remus gave him a surprised look of both disgust and amusement. “Who are you?"
“I’m just saying it’s easy to get over someone!” Black raised his hands in defence. “Just get with someone new.”
“Speaking from experience, Padfoot?” James sneered.
“Of course not. It’s other people that need to get over me.”
“She’s coming this way,” Peter noted.
At the notice of Lily Evans being headed in his direction, James straightened his back and cleared his throat, but the redhead went straight for Remus.
“Hey you!” she greeted him and wrapped her arms around his seated figure.
“Hey!” Remus chuckled back, giving her arm an awkward pat before she let go of him.
“How were your holidays?”
“Oh, you know. Boring. Yours?”
“Oh, just fine.” She shrugged. “I ran into Severus at the market, that was awkward.”
At that, James couldn’t hold his tongue. “Did he say anything to you?” he asked genuinely.
Severus Snape had been Lily’s high school friend when they entered Hogwarts University, and while Severus was begging to be placed in the notorious, ancient Serpent building, Lily was randomly assigned a dorm at Lion, all the way across campus. He begged her to ask for a change so they could stay together, but when she explained she had already made friends with her two dormmates, he became the nasty little boy he had always been inside. That sole interaction was proof enough that Lily needed to put some space between them, for they were older now, and there were some primordial differences she could not ignore anymore.
The separation was brutal on Severus, and it pained Lily into so much guilt that she tried to talk to him every now and then, but politeness was of no use anymore. Fueled by a sense of abandonment, and surrounded by new acquaintances that matched his political ideas and worldviews much better than Lily ever did, the young man was cruel to her whenever he had the chance. He would always apologise after, and Lily would accept it to ease his conscience — and to be left alone — but deep down, she was heartbroken and angry.
Most of their interactions started with diplomatic restraint, awkward greetings, sometimes even a glint of hopefulness that they could, one day, care for each other again, then proceeded into spiteful words and insults. It was never pretty, and it always left Lily feeling terrible, which was the reason behind James’ concern.
She shook her head. “No, I just waved and he walked away,” she assured him. “It was deeply terrible.”
“Bummer,” said Remus, sympathetically.
“I saw him eating with my brother the other day,” Sirius added in disgust. “They had a whole group of assholes, Rosier and Dolohov and those kinds.”
Lily looked at him like she often did, like she only ever paid attention to his presence when he said something meaningful. In her defence, Sirius was very good at wasting everyone’s time with meaningless comments.
“I didn’t know you had a brother on campus.”
Black shrugged elusively. “He’s not my pride and joy.”
Lily gave him a grin before turning to Remus with her usual warm smile. “Well, I just wanted to say hi before heading back up. See you tomorrow in class?”
“Yeah, see you there.”
Lion 4 koolkidz
(fab prewett, Gideon Prewett, jpotter, Lily Evans, marlenemck, mary, peter p,...)
marlenemck: anyone got weed
Lily Evans: it is precisely 'too early for this' o'clock
fab prewett: I do but I'm at raven
fab prewett: I can drop some when I come back
marlenemck: lifesaver!!!!! when are u coming back!!!!!
Remus: remember when this groupchat was just to escape the weird lion dorms one
Remus: I liked it better then
fab prewett: idk like an hour
marlenemck: there is no god
marlenemck: anyone eeeelse
marlenemck: it’s an emergencyyyyy I cant sleeeeeeeep
fab prewett: ok queen ill be there
sirius blk: fabian are u aware that she is in fact gay and will not go out with you?
fab prewett: imagine only doing nice things to get a date in exchange
fab prewett: must be a sad life
fab prewett: its ok you’ll understand human connection when you’re my age
Remus: sirius quit being mean and go to sleep you have an early class
sirius blk: uuuuh quit tracking my sleep? weirdo
sirius blk: fab can u drop some at my dorm pls
fab prewett: no you’re cranky go to sleep
Lily Evans: everyone go to sleep its LATE
Gideon Prewett: ok mommy
marlenemck: I’m trying!!!!
sirius blk: yeah me too tf
sirius blk: but fab won’t help me out 🥺
sirius blk: ok I don't actually need it to sleep but
sirius blk: I'm bored, James went to bed at like 8
Remus: serves you right you for messing with peter’s dorm rules
Remus: no I will not hang with you, you can stop knocking on my wall
sirius blk: you can explain the plot of richard the third to me
sirius blk: I know you read it for class :)
Remus: I read it for fun
Remus: ok I'll bring snacks
fab prewett: marls I'm outside the girls' dorms come on out
marlenemck: :):):)