The Marauders Year Five Part 2 #Wattys2017

Are You In or Are You Out?

Lily looked concerned.

"We had an ickle bitty fight," Sirius said, "Nothing terrible, really..."

Peter looked up, "Nothing terrible really? Nothing terrible really? Remus told you to go get kissed by a dementor!"

Sirius stared at the table for a minute. He'd been trying to forget about that all night. It was what had caused his nightmare, what had sent him crawling under James's covers in the middle of the night as a dog. He grabbed a cup of fruit, using the moment to force his breathing to stay normal and quickly bit into an orange slice, holding it to the front of his mouth and smiling 'round it so the slice looked like his teeth.

"Remus really said that?" Lily looked sad and turned to Sirius, "Are you alright?"

Sirius slid the orange slice so it stuck out of his mouth like a cigar and said around it, "Course I'm alright, Evans." He chewed the orange, staring her right in the eyes... She could see the sadness lurking there, just behind the facade of playfulness that he was putting on and she frowned, but let him have it, turning back to the table to collect food for herself. Sirius concentrated very much on his fruit cup.

"You ought to come with us, Lily," Peter said suddenly.

James stamped on Peter's foot under the table.

"Ow, what was that for?" Peter asked, scowling.

"Come with you?" Lily looked up, confused, "Come with you where?"

"We're going to go play in the woods tonight," Peter answered, still glaring at James.

Lily's eyebrows went up and she let her eyes bounce between the three of them... James stared straight down and Sirius looked away. "Are you mad? You're going out to the woods? With the dementors about?"

"Pffft. We aren't scared," James said, "Dementors shementors."

"Shementors!" Sirius hooted. "Do you lot reckon there are any shementors? Female dementors, I mean?"

Peter shivered. "I reckon they're the particularly nasty ones. My dad always says that you only anger a female if you fancy suffering the rest of your bleedin' life away."

"There must be shementors," James said, "How else would there be any dementors left? They have to multiply somehow."

"Shagging dementors!" Sirius cried, snorting, and all three of the boys descended into a fit of giggles.

Lily rolled her eyes, "Honestly!" She jabbed a sausage with her fork and waved it at Sirius, "Dementors don't shag, that's not how they multiply."

Sirius eyed the sausage and snickered, "And are you offering a demonstration with that thing, there Evans??"

"She's gonna fork you with her sausage, Padfoot," James snickered.

She flushed and put the fork down. "You are disgusting."

"You're the one flapping your sausage about in everyone's face," James said.

Lily shook her head.

"Anyway, Pete's right, Evans, you ought to come," Sirius said, suddenly turning the subject. He twisted on the bench and folded his legs so he was sitting in some sort of yoga postion-like knot. He grinned at her, "We'll show you a bleedin' good time."

"Most excellent," agreed James.

"The best," Peter nodded.

Lily laughed nervously. "I dunno. You lot are insane. Dunno if I fancy spending an entire ice-cold night out in the woods with you."