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Sirius was exceedingly aware that the pack of Marlboros in his pocket was a bad idea. He’d promised Remus he’d stop smoking, a first step to which would be to stop buying cigarettes.
But Remus wouldn’t find out, because Remus wasn’t here – Sirius didn’t even know where Remus was, because his mission was so top secret that even Sirius wasn’t allowed to know the details. And without Remus’s good influence, or any of their friends around to hold him accountable, who could blame Sirius for slipping up?
At the very least, getting the cigarettes had gotten him out of the flat, which even Remus would agree was a good decision on Sirius’s part.
Between half full mugs of cold tea and empty glasses of Ogden, Sirius’s mood had been slowly approaching rock bottom without him making any moves to leave the flat, or even the couch. His thoughts had been black as bile and he had long surrendered to their pull. He would have probably drunk himself into oblivion if a stray Incendio, directed at the day’s Prophet and its god awful headlines, hadn’t almost singed the picture that was pinned to the fridge. It missed by a millimetre, something Sirius made sure of, actually getting up to examine the edges of the photo in which one-year-old Harry gleefully shoved a scrap of gift wrap into his mouth, James laughing and Lily reaching out with a fond gesture, frozen in an eternal loop.
The thought that he couldn’t go visit them almost made him cast another Incendio, but instead he decided to get some air.
And indeed, the unseasonably cold wind had not only pushed Sirius down the road towards the corner shop, but also afforded him with a change of perspective. Or at least, a change of evening plans. Why wallow in his misery alone when he could wallow in company?
Not in particularly good company, mind, but Sirius would take what he could get: a nice pint, or five, in the Thirsty Thestral. Approaching it now, with the sign over the door askew and faded and the windows so grimy Sirius could barely make out the lights within, it looked about as inviting as his mother’s parlour, which, come to think of it, maybe was why Sirius liked it. He always sought out the familiar when he felt like he couldn’t cope.
He was steps away from the door, already anticipating the stale air of the guestroom with a somewhat masochistic joy, when he heard fast footsteps approaching. He barely had the time to turn and reach for his wand before an arm landed on his shoulder.
“Black! Just the man I was looking for,” a voice exclaimed, and a small woman in a black denim jacket reached up to pound Sirius on the shoulder with surprising force.
“Looking involves eyes, last I heard, McKinnon, not rugby-tackling people,” Sirius retorted.
Not one of his best comebacks, but then it wasn’t one of his best days.
“Bah, details!” Marlene grinned at him, infuriatingly unperturbed. “Fancy going to a gig with me tonight? I got a spare ticket.”
“Unfortunately, I already have plans,” Sirius replied.
Marlene squinted over his shoulder. “Are those plans to get black out drunk in that dingy hovel, by any chance?”
Thanks to his rigorous training growing up in the Black family, Sirius didn’t flinch.
“Dung almost got knifed there the other week,” Marlene added.
Sirius scoffed. “Well, that’s Dung for you – he’d probably get stabbed at Honeydukes.”
Marlene snorted and shook her head, making her messy ponytail swing from side to side, and Sirius felt the sharp edge of his worst instincts softening a little.
“What’s this concert then?” he asked.
“It’s the Sham 69 at the World’s End – might be their last gig in London this year. I was meant to go with Cas, but she’s… needed elsewhere.” Marlene smiled, but Sirius recognised the tension in her jaw as the same one he felt when he thought of Remus, off to Merlin knew where.
It was Remus, in fact, who had introduced Sirius to Sham 69. Or rather, Remus and Peter who had played their album non-stop last summer, and even though Sirius’s pure-blood educated sensibilities had rebelled against Punk in the beginning, he’d ended up knowing almost all the lyrics by heart.
“Alright,” Sirius said, more out of a desire to prove that he was still the same person he’d been then, than actually wanting to go to a Sham 69 gig.
“I knew I could count on you!” Marlene exclaimed, with a broad smile that burnt any possibility for Sirius to backpedal to dust.
As Marlene steered him unrelentingly towards the next Apparition point, Sirius regretted every choice that had taken him to this point.
He had carefully avoided speaking to anyone over the last few days, yet here he was, going out for a concert with Marlene.
It was only a matter of time until Marlene would ask the dreaded questions — how Sirius was, and what Remus was up to, and how James and Lily were doing. None of them were questions that Sirius could answer, not anymore. Still, the last one hurt the most, because Sirius had always been the one who knew about James, where he was, what he was up to. And Sirius could have still been this person, if he hadn’t been so damn noble. Now, he couldn’t even remember where they lived.
But Marlene didn’t ask.
“Ready?” she asked instead, raising an eyebrow at Sirius like a challenge.
“Anyt—” Sirius started, but the pull behind his navel cut off his words and he landed between the bins in a Camden sidestreet coughing his guts out.
“Maybe you should smoke less,” Marlene commented, making no move to help him.
“Maybe you should warn a man before you Apparate,” Sirius wanted to say, but what came out instead was something sounding like a clogged up bullfrog.
Marlene laughed and slapped him on the back. “Come on, let’s go — I’ll buy the first round to make it up to you."
With its dark wood tables and matching chairs, and windows that still performed their main function of being transparent, the World’s End looked a whole lot more proper than the name suggested. The patrons of the pub, however, didn’t seem to care about respectability in the slightest, wearing ripped jeans and studded belts. Some of the haircuts Sirius could see would have sent Orion straight to his grave, if he hadn’t already been dead.
“I’ll be right back!” Marlene said, raising her voice to carry over the din. “You go save us a spot. Stage is downstairs, just round the corner!”
Before he could reply, she dived into the crowd. Sirius was left standing, feeling out of place and unreasonably relieved that at least his personal style — or rather, yesterday’s jeans paired with his trusty leather jacket — made him look like he belonged.
Squeezing his way past a tall woman with a shaved side cut and boots that came up to her knees, Sirius made his way to the downstairs room, carefully avoiding eye contact lest someone want to talk to him.
He didn’t know when this had become his new normal. He used to be able to schmooze anyone, back in Hogwarts. You could have dropped him into a room of strangers and he’d have made three friends in ten minutes. But these days, he felt wrong, faulty like a machine with failing gears, even among friends, never quite finding the right words for anything.
Luckily, as Sirius made his way to the side of the room, the supporting act started playing, a welcome distraction. Sirius almost smiled when he saw how young they were, the coordinated all black outfits clearly an attempt to look like they were not a band practising in their parents’ basements. Sirius let his eyes wander across the four of them, when he did a double take.
“Here you go, mate,” Marlene said, snaking her way to him through the crowd with two pints held aloft at eye level.
“Thanks,” Sirius replied, but couldn’t tear his eyes away from the stage.
Marlene followed his gaze.
“Damn,” she said. “That bassist looks like he could be James’s younger brother, doesn’t he?”
“Spitting image,” Sirius agreed, talking past the lump in his throat.
“I really miss him,” Marlene said, her voice soft. “All of it, really.”
“Me too.” It felt like a confession, like something monumental.
But Marlene only bumped her shoulder against Sirius arm, and somehow this small contact settled him. He let out a long exhale.
First, he couldn’t look away from the bassist. How could he exude such presence, despite barely having a beard yet? But then his eyes drifted to the girl at the drums, clearly giving her all to the instrument that was the beating heart of the music, and he let himself get lost in the sound for a moment.
“Do you reckon we could do this?” he asked.
“What, play in a band?” Marlene replied, her ponytail bouncing as she shook her head in disbelief.
“Yeah. Just imagine — Peter on guitar; he’s at least as good as that guy.” Sirius pointed to the stage. “Cas sings.” Marlene nodded assent to that statement. “You can do drums and I’ll be on keys.”
“As if we’d survive a week without getting in trouble. Your keyboard would be on fire before the first chorus.”
Sirius couldn’t deny that at least in his school days, things around him had certainly had a tendency to catch fire.
“Pyrotechnics, McKinnon,” he said with a grin, feeling a spark of his old self catch in the flickering light of the basement concert. “It’s all about the show.”
To his immense satisfaction, the drummer of the band threw her stick up exactly then, making it spin in the air before catching it perfectly in time for the last beat of a song. The crowd cheered appreciatively.
“Do you ever think about what we’ll actually do after all this?” Marlene suddenly asked, keeping her eyes on the stage.
“After the war?” Sirius asked, surprised by her change in tone.
Marlene nodded, still avoiding his eyes.
“I don’t know,” Sirius admitted, pausing and letting his eyes drift over the crowd. “Some days I cling on to any dream of a time after, no matter how foolish. Like starting a band. Other times… I think I’ll just keep on fighting. Not sure I know how to do anything else, you know?”
Marlene gave him a tired half-smile, and Sirius felt that for once he had found the right words. She reached out, squeezing his hand for a moment. “We’ll figure it out together, yeah? When the time comes.”
He looked down at her, and the first sincere smile in days crossed his face. “Yeah, we will.”
The song ended, and the noise of the crowd surged back. Marlene straightened up, playfully shoving Sirius. “But until then, let’s enjoy the gig. Cas would have my hide if I spent this evening brooding.”
Sirius grinned, the moment of vulnerability slipping away easily but leaving a warmth in its wake. “Deal. Now, how about another round before the main act?”
Marlene flashed him a grin that he knew meant trouble.
“Race you to the bar, the loser pays!” she challenged, and before Sirius could react, she was off.
He chased after her, weaving through the crowd and laughing despite himself. Maybe getting those Marlboros hadn’t been a bad idea after all.