The Bug Collector | marauders

The Cloak

Once Sirius and Rose were stable Remus took a step away from the group and spoke.

"I'm going to finish this-" he held up his hand with the still lit cigarette in between his fingers before continuing.

"Which means it's your turn to take care of them." He said to Rose, pointing to the three boys surrounding them with his cigarette hand.

Usually an older student named Frank would somewhat take care of the boys when they got out of hand, but Frank Longbottom was not going to be at a Slytherin house party.

After giving his instructions Remus nodded to Rose and took off on his own, this is when Rose realized that sometime during the night he had taken Sirius' leather jacket as he was wearing it now, one hand holding his cigarette and the other was tucked into a pocket on the front of Sirius' jacket. His boots barely picked up off the floor as he walked outside.

If anyone was meant for a leather jacket, it was Remus.

A few more songs passed as the night went on and the boys all eventually migrated back to Remus outside, all but Sirius who sat next to Rose in a corner as they passed a cigarette he'd taken from Remus back and forth.

"God, the common room is going to smell so bad! And I'll have to help clean it." Rose said while throwing her hands up as the realization hit.

"I'm sure it's bad enough you have to deal with Reggie and Snivellus in here, now it's got fire whiskey all over the floor." He said with the Cigarette still hanging in his mouth, bouncing lightly with his words.

Rose made a face at the fire whiskey comment, but took a deep breath at hearing Sirius mention his brother in such a negative manner.

"Sirius?" She asked in a hushed voice.

"Yes?" He asked as he removed the cigarette from his mouth and put it out.

"You have the cloak right? We agreed you would use one of your "no questions asked" so we could 100% go pull some pranks if the lads just got piss drunk and wanted to go play animal farm out there instead?" Rose asked

"Yeah, of course" He said as he picked up the invisible cloth that was sitting beside him.

Not that Rose could see it, she'd left her glasses in her dorm. And it was invisible.

"Could we use that to uh- have a chat?" She asked quietly.

His response was scanning the room to see if anyone was really paying attention to two students sitting in the floor on the far end of the room and once he was sure there was no prying eyes he threw the cloak over them and whispered the silencing charm.

"So what's this about?" He asked, Rose took a moment before answering.

"It's, Regulus, I understand why you did it but, he probably feels like you abandoned him, you know?"

"You mean like he abandoned you second year? Did what our parents wanted instead of what he may have wanted to do? Don't you realize he's just gonna to keep doing that?"

"But what if he really has to now?" She asked and Sirius sighed.

"I've done all I can, Rose. I've made my sacrifices. He'll have to make his choices on his own from here. That's not on me, and it's surely not on you."

He leaned his head back on the wall behind him and closed his eyes.

Rose did the same, their hair was touching, messily mixing red and black stands.

The cloak felt smaller then, it would feel that way when Rose was under it with only Sirius.

A comfortable silence settled over them after a short time. She moved a tad to get comfortable, their knees had been touching as they sat next to one another, and now Rose had become aware that their hands had been doing the same.

She took a long look at their hands before speaking.

"Sirius?" She said looking back up at him.

"Yes?" He answered opening his eyes to look into hers. The air thickened in that moment. 

"Aren't you kind of going out with that girl, uh Mary? Lily's friend?" She asked looking in another direction for a moment.

She'd heard the boys talking about it on occasion, though Rose wasn't exactly sure. If not, none of her sisters close friends seemed to be seeing anyone, including Lily herself and Dorcas, Odette's older sister.

He gave a short laugh before answering.

"Thorns, "going out with" aren't exactly words I string together very often." He said as he leaned his head back against the wall once more.

"Good." Rose said with a nervous breathlessness that caught Sirius' attention, he quirked a brow and looked down at her, by then her hand was placed gingerly on his cheek. A small shake to it.

He placed his hand atop of her's and stared down at her for a moment, he'd just kept watching her like that. Trying to figure out what she was thinking.

And he'd bloody done it too.

"Don't be nervous, Rosie. It's just a kiss." He said soothingly.

He was still just one of the lads, kiss or not.

So, she finally reached up and touched her lips to his.

He kissed back without hesitation, the scents of smoke and cinnamon prevalent in the air.

Sirius' kiss felt not like someone who was often overwhelmed with passion as he presented himself, but as someone keeping their true passion at bay. Rose was sure her's felt the same.

The one kiss became many shorter ones as Sirius removed his hand from atop of her own on his cheek to hold both sides of her face, both thumbs sitting gently under either side of her chin.

A rather loud crash caused Rose to pull away ratter abruptly. Sirius took a moment to scan the room for the source of the noise.

"Please don't tell the others about that." She whispered as they both looked around the room through the invisibility cloak.

"Won't hear anything from me." He said attempting to suppress the smile he felt pulling at his lips.

"But speaking of the lads—" he said, pointing against the fabric of the cloak before continuing.

"I'm pretty sure that's a deer I just saw peek it's head out of the hallway leading to your dorms." He said while standing, looking around again before taking the cloak off and pulling her to his side by the hips, together they walked through the party to handle James before he got himself expelled.

On their way out surveyed around the room, and when she found who she was looking for, her usual passing glance, she made a realization based on what she'd seen.

Regulus had his mother's eyes. And not only the color.

—

The next morning at breakfast everyone seemed rather tired.

Peter had his head down, Remus flipped through a book like the rest of them didn't exist, Sirius had switched places with James and was seated next to Rose, and James himself looked far less lively than usual.

You'd think they'd get use to these shenanigans.

"I'm still sorry I broke the window, Thorns."James said sheepishly— well sheepishly for James.

"You flooded my dorm, Jamie. You're lucky we got there in time to keep it from spreading." Rose said like an annoyed mum.

"But we did fix it." Peter mumbled without lifting his head up from the table.

"Yeah, and it took all night. You're also lucky all my roommates were out." Rose tsked as she drizzled some honey over the pastry she had in her hand before taking a bite.

She then stirred her tea once more, cinnamon scented steam wafting up to meet her and Sirius' noses.

"Smells nice." He said fondly before turning back to continue his own food.

"It does." She said before she took another bite of her pastry while tugging at her skirt uncomfortably under the table. It was one of Lily's old ones and had gotten too small. She'd need to get new ones next year.