The Marauders: Year Five #Wattys2017

Sirius Black's 16th Birthday

James grinned and dropped it into Sirius's hand.

Remus was just glad that Lily's silly rock gift had managed to distract Sirius from his hair. Every now and then Sirius would reach up and try to put his wand through his hair and rediscover there was no hair to put it through. He tried balancing the thing over his ear, but that didn't work too well and it kept sliding off. Because he didn't like wearing the school robes, he didn't have the usual wand pocket at his chest like everyone else did.

"Try putting it through your belt loop like I do mate," James suggested.

"I'd probably blast my arse off if I did that," Sirius said warily.

"No! Don't do that!" Remus injected far too quickly. He flushed. "I mean. I like it the way it is. Your arse. I mean -- " he flushed even harder as Sirius and James both laughed really hard.

It was Lily Evans, who overheard this discussion during their walk across the lawn to Herbology, who turned about and said, "Give me your jacket."

"What?" Sirius looked at her, "If you're cold Evans you should've worn your own bleedin' jacket!" But he gave it to her (after all, he was a gentleman), only to let out a yelp when she used her wand to rip a seam on the inside. "What're you doing!?"

"Hold onto your knickers, I'm making you a wand pocket!" she answered and he watched as she magically extended the fabric and used her wand to sew in a nice little pouch that lined the inside of the chest of the jacket in the plaid fabric lining. When she'd finished, she handed it the jacket back to him. "There."

Sirius shrugged it on and slid his wand into the new pocket inside, then tried his hand at drawing it, pretending to be preparing to duel. "Brilliant!" he exclaimed. He turned to James, "Mate, try and hex me, you won't be able to do it faster than I can draw my wand."

James laughed as Sirius drew his wand and pretended to hex him, ducking an imaginary spell, "Oh you got me... you bleedin' got me..." he dramatically threw himself to the ground and rolled a few feet away on the leaf-strewn grass, twitching and playing at dying. Sirius laughed and ran, leaping upon him and the two of them rolled off down the hill the rest of the way to the greenhouses.

"Really," Lily murmured, shaking her head, "You'd never know they were as old as they are."

Remus smiled, "Yeah... they're having fun. Let'em have at it."

"JIMMINEY EARL WORTHINGTON THE THIRD IS LOOSE AGAIN!" Sirius cried at the bottom of the hill as he and James flipped and rolled to a stop in the grass, the string having snapped again. It was Peter that found it this time. "TAKE CARE OF HIM!" Sirius yelled.

The best bit of the evening though was later -- after everyone had had their turn at telling Sirius to have a Happy Birthday and the boys had played at Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans and charming Jimminey Earl Worthington the Third to fly about the dormitory and they'd joked about a good deal late into the night -- when Remus led Sirius off to the alcove in the Trophy Room Passageway. He'd snuck Sirius's stereo in from the Shrieking Shack with the help of James, and he'd done the spells needed to magically modify the stereo from needing the eleckytricity and made it so it worked, even on the grounds of Hogwarts. Sirius's eyes had lit up with excitement at being able to listen to his music anytime and he wrapped his arms around Remus tight with thankfulness, leaning against his chest as Remus held him close.

Remus breathed his scent in as Sirius clung onto him long past the regular thank you hug would've lasted and he whispered, "You know, today may be my very favorite holiday."

"It's not a holiday," Sirius murmured.

"It is to me."

Sirius laughed, "No... silly Moony."

"It is, though. It's the anniversary of the best day in all of history," he said, "The day you started to exist."

"Ah, poor Earth," Sirius muttered, "The day Sirius Black entered you." He paused, a grin crawling across his lips, "That sounded right dirty, didn't it?"

"Extremely," Remus whispered, and he bent forward to kiss Sirius's forehead, but the hem of the hat got in the way, so he reached up and he gently took hold on the hat and drew it off Sirius's head.

Sirius started to grab it to stop it coming off, "No, Moony, don't," he pleaded, but it was already off his head, his short hair and scalp exposed. His skin flushed from his chest up his neck and over his cheeks, and he pressed his face into Remus's chest, "Don't look, please, it's ugly."

Remus shook his head, "It isn't. You couldn't possibly be." He reached up and gently ran his hand over Sirius's head and kissed the bare patch on the side where his scalp showed. "You're handsome."

Sirius shook his head no against Remus's chest.

"Excuse me. Nobody insults my boyfriend. Not even my boyfriend is allowed to insult my boyfriend." Remus smirked and he held Sirius out at arm's length, staring into those beautiful, hauntingly sad grey eyes. "Sirius, you could be purple and have twenty-three toes and a great big umbrella growing out of your head and I'd still think you're handsome. I'm biased as hell."

Sirius looked up. "Well bleedin' hell, of course you'd like an umbrella growing out of my head - that'd be damn useful! I would like that actually. Blimey. Imagine that. And being purple might not be so bad either. You ever hear that one song... Sheb Wooley... about the one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater?" Sirius grinned.

Remus laughed, "I can't say I have."

"Well I saw the thing... a comin' out of the sky... it had one big horn... and one big eye... I commenced to shakin'... and I said oohwee! It looks like a purple people eater to meeee..." Sirius sang, and he grinned as he looked up at Remus's dismayed face. "It was a one-eyed, one-horned flyin' purple people eater! One-eyed, one-horned flyin' purple people eater!..."

"This is an actual song?" Remus asked.

Sirius laughed, "Yeah. Crazy muggles."

"Indeed."

Sirius hooted. "Must be the same folks that came up with pet rocks."

Remus shook his head as he chuckled, running his palms over Sirius's arms. The twinkle in Sirius's eyes far outweighed the strange shear to his hair. He really was handsome. Remus suddenly caught Sirius's face up in his palms and tilted his chin up to look into his eyes, "Happy Birthday, Sirius Black," he whispered, and he pressed his mouth to Sirius's, pulling him in, staggering backward toward the little couch.

Sirius drew his wand from his pocket, aiming at the stereo, turning it off as they fell on top of each other on the couch, shrugging off their jackets and sweaters and oxfords and trousers and untangling Sirius's ridiculously long Gryffindor scarf from about his neck until they were just Sirius and Remus on the couch with nothing in between...