***
Sirius wakes up on Christmas morning to the owl he and Regulus share tapping on his window. When he grabs the letter, he sees it addressed to ENORMOUS BERK, 12 ROTTEN STUFFY PLACE, ISLINGTON in James' chicken scratch handwriting.
Sirius,
I don't know why you don't just CURSE the lot of them and make a break for it. The one we tried on Aubrey would work nicely—keep them distracted long enough, anyway. Then you could start your life as a VAGRANT, living on the streets and beating people up and hanging out in dark alleys. It sounds like a right exciting life if you ask me.
Answering your question about 'the plan': THERE IS NO PLAN other than 'James sneaks into the Restricted Section and digs out all the Animagus books he can find and distributes them between his two dumb and useless friends', which we've already got covered. Now that I've got some free time away from Remus I might be able to get somewhere with it, but I've just been through this bloody book for about the four thousandth time and it STILL reads like it's been translated into Gobbledegook. When we get back we're going to have to have ANOTHER party in the Restricted Section to look up all the stuff we don't get in these, and then another one to look up all THOSE words, and so on and so on and so on until we figure it out OR die but if we DO DIE we will die knowing we gave it the OLD GRYFFINDOR TRY, and what more can a man expect of himself, I ask you?
So, to summarise:
THE PLAN (AS IT STANDS):
-become ANIMAGI (DIFFICULT AND IMPROBABLE)
-do it WITHOUT REMUS NOTICING (more DIFFICULT AND IMPROBABLE)
-be GODS among MEN
I eagerly await your response about the cursing, and if you haven't got the guts to do it then you'll have plenty of time to work on your Animagus book, won't you? Me, you, and Pete can write up notes and stuff and compare when we get back, or rather you and Pete will fill me in on what you read because mine has, as mentioned, been translated to GOBBLEDEGOOK or perhaps MERMISH.
Happy Christmas,
JAMES WARREN BHARGAVA POTTER
Sirius has just sat down at his desk and pulled out a sheet of parchment when a loud crack behind him makes him jump.
"Kreacher! What've I said about that?!"
"Young Master's door was locked," comes the croaking reply.
"That's when you're supposed to knock."
"Mistress Black asked Kreacher to fetch Young Master."
"I'm not going."
Kreacher glowers up at him. "My Mistress wishes Young Master to come downstairs."
"Are you deaf as you are ugly?" Sirius growls, pushing past Kreacher. He throws himself down onto his bed and says into the bedspread, "I'm not going."
"Kreacher has his orders from Mistress Black, Kreacher must obey his orders—"
"Then I order you to leave me alone. Or just die, whichever you like."
With a crack, Kreacher vanishes. A few moments later, a scream drifts up from downstairs.
"Sirius!"
"Euuuugh." Sirius falls back onto his bed for a moment before shouting back, "Coming!"
Sirius hates Christmas.
He does his best to stay out of this house, and normally he's fairly good at it. He wanders in the city or visits Brianna or, when he feels like navigating the Underground, visits Remus. When he can't do those things he locks himself in his room and writes letters to his friends. They don't let him do any of that on stupid bloody Christmas.
Sirius faces his door and tells his hand to reach up and twist the knob, but nothing happens. Staring at the blank wood in front of him, he thinks about how pathetic it is that he, a Gryffindor, can't find the courage to face his stupid parents, of all things. He doesn't feel like himself in this house. This place makes him feel like somebody else entirely, somebody he doesn't know or like.
For no reason he can tell, he hears Lily's voice in his head. You need it more than I do.
He goes over to his trunk and finds, stuffed in the pocket of his robes, the purple-red pencil. Without really knowing why, he goes over to the mirror and carefully, slowly, traces it around both of his eyes. When he's done, he studies the effect. It doesn't look as nice as when Lily did it; the lines are wobblier.
I look like me, though, he thinks, and heads downstairs.
Mother, Father, and Regulus are already sitting in the drawing room, and Kreacher is serving tea. Mother stirs hers with no apparent plan of ever drinking it, instead talking at Father while he reads The Daily Prophet.
"Another of those awful Muggle buildings was burned down, did you see?" she says. "The Ministry's decided to employ an entire task force to investigate. They've hidden it in the back pages, they're embarrassed." She scoffs. "Rightly, too. Wasting time and money, don't know what this government's come to. Muggle-loving bureaucrats, that's what they all are in the Ministry. My dear, I do think you're the only one with a shred of self-respect among the whole lot."
In his quiet voice, Father says, "Not for long, I believe."
"How do you mean?"
Absorbed in his reading, Father mumbles, "The tide is turning," and explains no further.
***
James flies his new broom all Christmas morning, the cold be damned. It's magnificent, every bit as good as Which Broomstick?'s been raving about for months. He doesn't head back home until early afternoon, his hands and feet and nose numb with cold but not caring a bit.
He runs for the sitting room to thank his parents for the thousandth time and recount the story of how he just narrowly avoided some Muggle kids flying a kite, and in the corridor he hears voices. James forgot Mum and Dad were inviting Mr and Mrs Harper over for Christmas tea. They're the old couple who live in the house nearest theirs, about half a mile away and close to the Muggle village. James usually finds them rather boring, but there's an urgency to the conversation in the sitting room that makes him hover by the doorway, out of sight, and listen.
"...noticed something's going on," comes Mrs Harper's wispy voice. "Was chatting with the lady in the village garden shop and she mentioned it. It's been on their news."
"It's been mostly Muggles, makes sense they're taking notice," says Dad. "Buildings set on fire! Would catch attention, I should think."
"It's ironic, I reckon they're getting more coverage in their papers than we are," says Mr Harper. "Cecily and I missed it entirely at first, dear, didn't we?"
"No, didn't know at all— Archie's brother came calling one day and said, 'What about those fires, then?' and we hadn't the foggiest what he was talking about. Been happening for a year or more, and we hadn't heard a peep about it. Kept it to the back pages, I threw it out with the weather reports."
"Think it's on purpose?" Dad asks.
"I can't imagine that it's not," Mum says. "Seems as though something like that should make the front page, doesn't it? The Ministry leans on the Prophet, it's no secret. Begs the question what they're trying to hush up."
"Oh, rumours, dear, rumours," Mrs Harper says.
"Rumours?"
"That they're organized, the attacks. People are saying— or so Archie's brother says, he's still with the Obliviator Headquarters—"
"We've been after him to retire for ages, ever since that fiasco with the goblins, what was it, sixty-two? 'The stress, Ellis, on a man your age,' I tell him—"
"—and he says there are rumours within the Ministry. You two are too young to remember—"
"Not often you can say that," jokes Dad.
"—but naturally everybody old enough gets very anxious, he was never in power here but they say he was close to taking Britain if Dumbledore—"
"I heard stories when I first started with International Magical Cooperation," Mum says. "Some of my superiors at the time were on the front lines then, goodness, such dreadful things..."
"So, that's the rumour, then? That it's happening here this time?"
"I don't think anybody thinks that," Mr Harper replies. "But Ellis got quite nervous when I asked further, that's for certain. Nasty business."
"These things make everybody anxious. My heart goes out to those poor people, but I won't suppose it's a group of radicals behind it until we've any evidence," says Mrs Harper.
"Suppose we can't start a panic, can we?" says Dad. "We've got our people on it with the Muggle police helping, they'll sort it out soon enough."
"One hopes," says Mum. "It's been a year and they don't seem any closer, do they?"
"Such jolly attitude on Christmas, darling! Right, anybody know any good dirges?"
Mum laughs. "Alright, alright." The distinctive sound of cup-meets-saucer. "Warren, I think our son's frozen to death."
"Has he? Excellent, I was getting bored of him."
"Laugh it up, you two," James says, bounding around the corner and savouring Mum's little jump of surprise. "See who takes care of you when you're old."
Dad springs to his feet and gives James' hair a playful tousle. "Oy, who just bought you a racing broom, eh?"
"It's excellent," James says, beaming to him and Mum. He says his hellos and happy Christmases to Mr and Mrs Harper, then turns to Dad again. "You should've seen me! There were these Muggles with a kite and they almost saw me but I—"
"Let's not give your mother a heart attack, pal. Up for some one-on-one?"
"It's freezing out!" Mum says with a laugh.
"That's what they make cloaks for," James says. He tugs on Dad's sleeve, says "Race you!" and starts for the back door at a run.
***
"Peter, shut that off," Aunt Esther calls over her shoulder as she pours Uncle Stanley mulled wine. "Too dark for Christmas Day, I should think."
She isn't wrong; on the news they're talking about a whole family in Gloucester that died. Somebody burned their house down. Peter leans forward and switches the television off.
"Don't know what's wrong with the world these days," says Uncle Stanley. "Third one I seen this week. On Christmas, too; it's right dodgy, isn't it?"
On the other side of Aunt Esther and Uncle Stanley's sitting room, in the armchair by the Christmas tree, Granddad makes one of his displeased growly noises. "Sailor Ted's behind it, mark me words."
"So the Prime Minister's burning down houses, now?" teases Aunt Esther. She sits down on the sofa next to Peter and drops him a wink.
"Didn't say that, only saying he's a bleeding coward," says Granddad. "Didn't do nothing to wallop those miners back into shape— know what they'd do in the old days? Smack 'em round the ears until they pulled their weight, that's what."
"See, Maddie?" Uncle Stanley turns around and talks to Mum as she comes into the room, carrying a platter of Christmas cake. "Heath should've just given all the miners a good smack each, that'd fix the economy right on up."
Mum sets the cake down with a huff. "Dad, I'd die a happy woman if we could go one day without—"
"What's he going to do about the arson, eh?" Granddad demands of no one in particular. "Churches burned to the ground on Christmas Day, nothing Christian about it, it's just like the damned Fascists—"
"Oh, not the Fascists again..." mutters Mum. She sits down at the table next to Uncle Stanley and pours herself a tall glass of mulled wine.
"The Labourers are no good neither, but the whole bloody Conservative party's got its head up its arse—"
"Dad," Mum scolds.
"—electing a pillock like that; coward and a Fascist, and a queer besides."
"A what?" asks Peter.
"Dad!" Mum says, louder this time. "You and your foul mouth will put me in me grave early."
"Load of twod." Granddad flaps a hand at her. "All I'm trying to say is that there's a reason there's no jobs left, there's a reason Maddie's out of a job on Christmas and it's mismanagement, you mark me words."
"Lots to mark," Uncle Stanley says, "You haven't shut your gob since the bloody armistice."
He and Aunt Esther laugh outright; Mum snorts into her wine. Then the sitting room door opens, and Rosemary pokes her head in. "You lot done shouting at each other? I always miss the excitement."
"Hush, Rosie. Where're the others?"
"Clive's put a snowball down Roger's shirt and it was a bit of a ruckus, give it a moment."
The room becomes significantly more crowded after the addition of Peter's five cousins, and within minutes it's descended into a chaos of voices and rustling paper.
"Ta, Pete," says Clive, opening the socks he gave him. "Dead useful, these. I'm having another growth spurt, Mum says. Feet keep getting too big for me socks."
Peter smiles, relieved. He felt guilty for picking out such terribly boring presents for his cousins, but there wasn't a lot of money for gifts. Ever since Mum lost her job, they've been living on Granddad's pension. He digs some peanuts and a bright green Super Ball out of his Christmas stocking and jokes, "Thanks for the update."
Sitting on the carpet at his feet, Rosemary laughs. "The what, Peter?"
"Sorry?"
"What'd you say?"
"Thanks for the update," he repeats, confused.
Clive's laughing too, and Roger and Kenneth, and even little Joan. "The what?" asks Roger.
"The update," Peter nearly shouts. The five of them laugh again, and then he remembers.
"Oh," he says. "Sorry." Feeling himself going red, he's careful to switch into his Lancashire vowels when he says, "Update."
Rosemary sniggers. "We're only joking. I think it's funny."
"It's hilarious!" adds Clive. "You're talking more and more like a Southern tart with every holiday! What's in the water at that fancy school of yours, eh?"
He's not wrong; Granddad declared as much the moment he first heard him speak last Christmas hols. It's not like Peter does it on purpose, these moments when his mouth slips. It just happens.
The thing is, none of his friends talk at all like he does. Remus isn't the problem, he's not so posh: his middle-of-the-road London is a far cry from Cockney, but it's not too proper either. Even James isn't so bad— really, it's Sirius. Peter's never heard anybody talk so much like the queen before. Plus, Sirius seems to find Peter's natural accent quite funny.
"It's—it's me friends," Peter stammers. He hears his voice squeaking nervously, which, as always, only makes the nerves worse. "They talk really posh. It— I— it rubs off sometimes, I reckon," he finishes quietly.
Their teasing tapers off and everybody goes back to opening presents, but Peter suspects his face is still red and blotchy.
***
Sirius goes to the tree and immediately begins distributing the parcels underneath. The sooner everybody's opened their stuff, the sooner he can leave.
"You've been hogging Charon," says Regulus.
Sirius tosses a silver and gold wrapped package at his head. "Have not."
"Have so."
"What d'you need an owl for anyway? Who've you got to talk to? You're a baby, babies don't have friends."
"I'm not a baby!"
"You're ten, you don't even go to school yet, so shut it."
"Mother doesn't like your friends. She says they're bad influences on you."
"That's 'cause she's jealous, 'cause she hasn't got any friends, nobody likes her."
"Don't you start, Sirius." Mother takes a deep breath, toying absently with her necklace. "It's Christmas."
"So?"
Everybody unwrapping one gift at a time takes a thousand years. Nothing happens until Sirius opens a new set of stiff-collared, ancient-looking dress robes.
"You'll wear those to your aunt and uncle's tonight," Mother says brightly. "Your old ones have gotten quite—"
"What's it matter how I look? They all hate me anyway, and I hate them."
Her face scrunches up like it always does when she's angry. "I will not have your attitude today, young man, I will not have it."
"Tell me when you will have it, then— I've got plenty saved up."
"Here we go," grumbles Regulus.
"Oh, I just can't understand it!" she explodes. "What more can I do? We give you all the opportunities in the world and you throw it in our faces! Your ingratitude is...is shameful! Owls from the school at all hours, telling me of your— your antics, it's shameful, Sirius, it's disgraceful! How you can have so little dignity, so little respect for the traditions of the family that brought you up— don't you roll your eyes at me! Your rudeness is—"
"Guess you're Miss Manners," Sirius mutters.
"And I'm not told all of it by the school, no!" she continues, growing shriller with every breath. "The stories I hear! I had to be told by Volumnia Nott how you and that blood traitor boy tormented her son, and the humiliation, you cannot imagine!"
"'Tormented'?" Sirius snorts. "We gave him some boils and Madam Pomfrey magicked them off in about a minute, that's a bit much."
"I don't care how quickly they were gone!" she snaps. "The Notts are a wonderful family, a noble line, immaculate blood on all sides, and to target their innocent son was an awful, awful thing to do! You might think of us every now and again, of how you do embarrass your poor mother!"
"He wasn't innocent!"
Regulus jumps in. "What'd he do?"
"He's a Slytherin and I don't like his face."
"That's not anything!"
"It's plenty," Sirius says. "He's a git and I don't like him."
"It was mean," Regulus says. "You're a bully. What's on your face, anyway?"
Mother blinks, thrown off. "What, darling?"
"His face, he's got something on his face."
The exact moment she notices flashes across her face; she squints, confused. "What is that?"
"Oh," Sirius says. For a second he wonders if this was such a great idea. "Eyeliner, my friend gave it to me. It looks way cool. Rock stars wear it."
While Mother is, for once, lost for words, Regulus gives him a look like he's bloody insane.
"Boys don't wear makeup," he says.
"Sure they do."
"No they don't."
"Well I'm a boy and I'm wearing it, so they do, so shut up."
"You won't in this house," Father says.
All three of their heads snap up toward Father on the sofa. He doesn't look at any of them, just sips his tea.
Mother's face drops. Sirius feels his heartbeat fly into his throat; Mother's rage is shrill and constant but Father has a temperament like a sleeping snake.
Sirius swallows around his beating heart. "Won't I?"
"You won't." He gives Sirius a hard, even stare with eyes the same colour as his.
Sirius hears Mother say in a thin, nervous voice, "Dear?"
"Go wash it off," Father tells him.
Sirius wills his voice not to shake. In his head he repeats, Where dwell the brave at heart, where dwell the brave at heart. "Don't think I will, thanks," he says.
Clearing his throat, Father reaches for his wand. He gives it a short flick and murmurs, "Scourgify."
Sirius' eyes sear like a thousand bee stings. He hears himself cry out in pain but he barely notices, too busy pawing desperately at his face; his hands scoop away something foamy from his eyes, squeezed shut against the horrible, horrible burning, but there's so much of it—
From Mother's end of the sofa Sirius hears the sound of springs creaking, then comes Father's voice: "Leave it." There's a moment of pause, and then: "I don't like to repeat myself, dear."
She sits back down.
After a moment of desperate fumbling, Sirius finally feels his hand close around his untouched cup of lukewarm tea. He clumsily tips it over his face, gasping at the slight relief, then picks up the nearest throw pillow. He presses his face into the fabric, heaving out short, panting breaths. When he looks up again, soaked and sticky and teary-eyed, he sees Mother watching him, stricken. He drops his eyes to fix resolutely on the unwrapped box in his lap. The ugly dress robes are sodden and soapy, tea-stained.
The quiet is stifling. Sirius won't look up. He doesn't want to know what Regulus' face looks like right now and he tries very hard not to think about it.
As anyone could've predicted, Mother is the first to speak.
"Of course your father's absolutely right," she says bracingly. "Remember that you can't be too careful with behaviour like that. It breeds perversion even in the best families, doesn't it, my dear? There was that, oh, that cousin of the Rosier's," she continues, "what was it, fifteen years ago? Perhaps twenty? We were rather young, didn't understand it at the time-- when was it, dear?"
Father hums. "Mm, about twenty."
"Yes," she goes on. She's fallen comfortably into one of her sermons; normalcy is restored. "Shame to her blood, of course, unspeakable shame. Lucky they were of such sterling breeding aside or I think they mightn't ever have recovered, reputation alone— even now it's a stain on them, what she did, such an unfortunate thing, you know the Rosiers and better people you couldn't possibly imagine, my heart does go out to them. Didn't deserve the ordeal she put them through. Such a terrible, terrible, horrific thing."
Sirius' curiosity outweighs his silence. "What happened, what'd she do?"
"Never you mind," says Mother. "Just remember, remember this: when blood is—"
"What happened?" Sirius says.
"I said never mind!" she snaps. "To speak of such things in, in detail," she continues, mouth pinched with distaste, "is certainly not appropriate, I should think not. Regulus, dear, open the red one next."
It's strange indeed. Never in living memory has Mother had a piece of gossip that was too horrific to talk about, and at length; lecturing on the shames of their friends and relatives is, after all, her favourite pastime.
He finds it so mysterious that even after he's finally excused from the drawing room he thinks about it, lying on his bed rubbing his still-stinging eyes. What could be so bad, he wonders, that even Mother won't talk about it? Did the Rosiers' cousin kill a whole bunch of people, or take up eating kittens, or what? And whatever it was, what has it got to do with boys wearing makeup?
***
It's warm and cozy in the little flat, the Christmas tree's red and green lights blinking merrily. The television's tuned to the queen's speech but neither of them are paying attention; it's a tradition with Remus and his mum that Christmas afternoon is spent reading a new book. They're curled up on either end of the sofa, knotty old afghan thrown over their legs in the middle.
Remus is very much enjoying his present— it's a historical drama full of swordfights and intrigue, she knows him so well— when Mum puts down her book and says, "Oh, hang on." She kicks off the blanket, stands up, and turns for the kitchen. "I've got another present for you."
"Oh? What is it?"
"Books."
Something heavy plops onto his lap. It's a paper bag from their favourite bookshop. He looks inside.
Horror overcomes him.
"Oh no."
"Read them at your leisure," she says casually, settling back into her sofa corner. "You're getting to the age where you'll have questions."
Remus lets go of the bag, knocks it to the floor. "No questions. I— I haven't got any questions."
"Sweetheart, if you're an expert on the subject at twelve I've failed as a mother," Mum replies, back to her own, non-horrifyingly embarrassing book. "Give them a look, and let me know if there's any of the finer points you'd like to discuss."
"But I—I—" Remus stammers, outraged. "Hang on, this was supposed to be the one perk of my condition, that we wouldn't have to talk about this!"
"What?"
"Well, I...I'm not going to ever...go out and date anybody, am I?"
She looks at him, her expression unmistakably sad. "You don't know that."
"Yeah I d—"
"Must be nice."
Remus rolls his eyes to himself. "To know everything. Yeah, it's nice."
"You must try harder to not be such a defeatist all the time. You've got a tougher lot than most people, but ultimately you're your own worst enemy."
Deeply uncomfortable, Remus sighs. "I haven't got to read them now, have I?"
Mum picks her book up again and snorts. "No. Get back to your pirates."
Remus stretches his foot down to kick the bag even further under the sofa and out of sight. He goes back to reading.
***
Sirius hears a knock on his door. He groans. "Go away Kreacher!"
"It's me," comes Regulus' voice.
"Oh. What do you want?"
"Can I come in?"
"Fine, whatever." He flops backwards and looks at the ceiling. The door opens.
"Are your eyes okay?"
Sirius feels his face heat up. He flips over and hides it in his pillow. "Yeah, fine."
Regulus doesn't leave. Or Sirius doesn't hear him, at least.
"You can have Charon, if that's what you want," Sirius says. He doesn't feel like writing letters anyway.
"No, that's alright."
"What d'you want, then?"
"I just...I dunno. Do you want me to leave?"
Sirius sighs into his pillow, turns over, and sits up. "Nah." Regulus stands by the door, looking uncomfortable. "You can sit down, you haven't got to stand there forever."
"Alright." He walks over and sits cross-legged at the end of Sirius' bed.
It's been a long time, Sirius realizes, since they've talked like this. Or talked at all. Things between them have been different since he left for school, since his Sorting.
Used to, it felt like he and Regulus were one team. Against their governess when they were little, against their parents. It doesn't feel like that anymore.
"That looked like it really hurt," Regulus says. "What Dad did, I mean."
Sirius shrugs. "Nah, not really."
"Oh."
"They're just nasty gits, as usual. Nothing extraordinary."
"You could be nicer, y'know."
"Why would I do that? They aren't nice to me."
"Kreacher's nice to you."
"What's Kreacher got to do with anything?"
"You could be nicer to him."
Sirius snorts. "He's a house elf, he'll get over it. Besides, I hate him."
"You could still be nicer, though," Regulus mutters.
"What d'you think that cousin did, then?" Sirius asks. "The Rosiers', I mean. Why wouldn't Mum talk about it?"
Regulus bites his lip. "I know, actually. I know what happened."
"No you don't."
"Do too."
"Do not. How?"
"Heard them talking once, at Uncle Alphard's. They didn't know I was there. They were talking about it."
"When?"
"Years ago."
"What was it, then?" Sirius asks. "What'd she do?"
"Well, she ran off with somebody."
"'Ran off'? Like, married?"
"Sort of."
"What, a Muggle?"
"No, well, I dunno, maybe she was. I think she was a witch. She was a girl, anyhow, that was the problem."
"A girl?" Sirius says. "What d'you mean, a girl?"
"A girl, like, a girl, girl."
"What's she got to do with the Rosiers' cousin?"
"She ran off with her. The Rosiers' cousin ran off with another girl, that's why everybody was angry."
Sirius is lost. "Hang on. I thought you meant 'ran off' like married ran off."
"Well, sort of like that. Not married, because you can't do that, but like boy-and-girl except with two girls, yeah."
Sirius rolls his eyes. "That's not— that doesn't happen, Reg, you can't do that."
"Yeah you can, it does, that's the thing! That's why it was a big deal."
"Hang on, what's a big deal?"
"There's a thing where girls like other girls like that, and the same with boys," Regulus says. "Boys liking other boys, and stuff."
"You're mad."
"I'm not. It's real."
"Pull the other one."
"I swear! That's what they said! Then I asked Andromeda if it was real and she said yeah it is, there are people like that."
Sirius suddenly feels weird about his arms for some reason. He crosses them over his chest tightly. "There are boys that like other boys? Dromeda said that?"
"She said it 'cause it's true."
He feels as if he should say something, but his voice feels funny and he can't think of anything. Shrugging, Regulus goes on.
"Yeah, it's mad, but she's never lied before. Suppose that's why Mum didn't want to talk about it, 'cause she didn't want to have to go through and explain it all."
"Yeah," says Sirius.
"Are you going into the city today, d'you think? Before we go to the family thing?" asks Regulus.
"Dunno."
"You should, Mum gets angry at me when I go without you and it's hard sneaking out when she's around all the time. She's gone more when you aren't here."
"Don't really feel like it."
"Why not?"
"I just don't, okay?" he snaps. His voice is louder than he thought it'd be.
Regulus makes a face. "Alright, fine. Don't be weird."
"I'm not being weird," he says. He's loud without meaning to be again at the start of the sentence but he quickly corrects himself, so by the end he's talking extra quietly. It probably sounds very odd.
"Whatever. Tell me if you go so I can go too, being cooped up is driving me mad."
"Right," he says. Regulus leaves.
For a while Sirius sits on his bed, not thinking about anything particularly.
He feels strange.
***
"What about you, Pettigrew? How was the haul?"
"Er." Peter shoos Tesla off of his pyjamas and starts to tug them on. "Alright. I got a new jumper, and two comic books, and, er..."
James rolls his eyes. "You and those Muggle comics, I don't understand it and I never will."
"Didn't you like that Superboy I got you last year?"
"Er," says James, digging through his trunk. "Yeah," he says as he yanks out his pyjamas, "yeah, it was far out. What else you get?"
"Er." Peter flounders for a moment. Does he explain to them about Mum's job, and how these days he's even poorer than before?
He spots something neon green in his trunk. He leaps at the distraction. "I got this in my stocking." Peter unearths it and holds it up. "It's a Super Ball."
"Weird colour," says Sirius as he reaches out and grabs it. He holds it up to the light and says, "What's it do?"
"It's a Muggle toy, you throw it and it—"
Sirius doesn't wait to hear the end of the sentence before hurling the tiny rubber ball full-force at the dormitory wall opposite.
A minute or two later, after Peter has soothed an agitated Tesla and James successfully repaired his shattered lamp, Sirius eyes the Super Ball with new awe. "Wicked," he declares, eyes glinting.
"From where you're standing," grumbles James, replacing scattered knick knacks on his nightstand. "What about you Black, what'd you get?"
"Nothing as far out as this," Sirius says, still examining the neon green ball, which Peter's sure can't have cost more than ten pence, "but Brianna gave me two whole records— full LPs, even! She's the best." Sirius crawls under his covers. "Plus Malcolm says if he gives her a special address at the Hogsmeade post office they can transfer her letters from Muggle post to owls, so she can actually write to me now. She wouldn't know they were sticking her letters onto owls, obviously, but he can tell her whatever she needs to hear, since she thinks he went to the same snobby boarding school I go to."
"Guess he did, technically," Peter says.
"You don't think it's dumb that you're pals with a couple of Muggle grown-ups?" asks James.
"Only Brianna's a Muggle, and she's brilliant," says Sirius defensively. "Even if she still won't let me ride on her motorbike. She's, y'know, protective of me, looks out for me. She's like the mum I never had."
As he climbs into his own bed Peter asks, "I thought that was Mrs Potter?"
"Ah, well, of course you're right. And she likes me better than she likes James, besides." Sirius thinks for a moment. "Alright, so Brianna's the immature, dysfunctional godmother I never had."
"There you go."
"Remus? What'd you get?"
To Peter's surprise, Remus' face darkens. "Well, there was the normal stuff, from Mum. But, er. She also got me...er."
Sirius sits up, grinning. "What? What'd she get you?"
"Was it a dress?" James crows. "A pony?"
"No, er," says Remus. He goes over to his trunk and starts rifling through it, and Peter thinks he sees him going a bit red. "Well, she got me books."
"So?" says James. "You love books."
Remus straights quickly, pyjamas in his arms and a look of horror on his face. "Not these books."
"What's wrong with them?"
"Er..." He faces away from them as he changes clothes. He hasn't been embarrassed about his scars for forever, though, so Peter can only assume it's to hide his reddening face. "Mum's an academic, you see? So, oftentimes, she has a rather...academic way of handling things. Particularly, er, sensitive subjects."
Sirius, by contrast, looks as though he's rather enjoying himself. "What? What subject?"
"She said, erm, that I— well, you see, she said I was reaching an age when people, young men, got to asking themselves, well, questions, and she figured—"
"Spit it out, Lupin," laughs James.
"She got me...Kinsey."
"I don't know what that is," says Peter, feeling stupid.
"Me neither."
"Nor me. C'mon, what'd she get you?"
Remus turns around, arms still pinned to his side by his half-on pyjama top, and with the air of ripping off a plaster to get it done quickly says, "She got me sex books, alright?"
All three of them roar with laughter. Remus looks like he wants to die.
"Let's see them!" shouts James gleefully, "Are they helpful? Full of useful tips?"
"They're," says Remus, looking haunted, "graphic."
James only laughs harder.
"Not—not, like, in a, a pornographic way. They're clinical! So clinical! It's awful!"
"What do they talk about, then? Are you learning?" There's an evil grin on James' face. "There's got to be some wonderfully weird stuff to learn about."
Sirius speaks extraordinarily quickly when he says, "My cousin said there are girls who like girls and boys who like boys, like, like that. Talk about weird."
The three of them turn to look at Sirius.
James is making a face of utter astonishment. "Have you honestly never heard the word 'gay' before?" he asks. "I know you old school purebloods are sheltered and all, but. Blimey, mate."
"So that does happen?"
"Yeah, it happens, you plonker, what bubble have you been in? It's against the law and all that, but people do it anyway. What's the sudden interest?"
Sirius looks angry. "Not interest, I just hadn't heard of it before, is all."
"Well, mate, there are poofs in the world, there's your bubble burst. Anyway," he continues, turning now on Remus, "I suppose you'll be an expert with the ladies now, won't you, with your," he gives a suggestive squirm of his eyebrows, "books?"
Remus throws a pillow at his face.
***
It's the middle of the night when they stumble back into the dormitory and throw the Cloak off, but Remus is wide awake reading a book anyway. Busted.
"Oh, er, hey there," James says, as if he hasn't just been caught red-handed.
Remus doesn't look suspicious, at least, but he's clearly confused. "Where were you lot?"
Sirius feels James thinking up some mad excuse at his side; he buys some time. "What're you doing up?"
"I woke up a bit ago. Couldn't fall back asleep."
Past the window, the moon is big and white. "Feeling moon-y, then?"
Peter raises his eyebrows at him. "'Moony'?"
"You know what I mean."
"A bit moony, yeah," Remus answers. He sits up straighter in bed. "You lot are up to something."
"Yep, yeah, we are, you've caught us," James says. Sirius sees him shift the books under his arm as if to hide their titles under his sleeve, a much harder feat in pyjamas than it is in robes. "We went to the Restricted Section to research a new prank we're doing. Great one, too! Just a— just a really, really far out new prank. We were going to keep it a surprise for you— because it's so far out, that is— but, well, the jig's up, I guess."
"What is it?"
"Oh, well, here's the thing, it's..." Sirius watches James' eyes flit around the dormitory for inspiration and sees them land on Peter's bed, where Tesla is curled up, gnawing on the bright green Super Ball that'd nearly destroyed the place a couple of weeks ago. "Super Balls."
"...Oh?"
There's real excitement on James' face now. "Yeah, yeah, see, here's what we're going to do: remember that Geminio spell, the one I did on the alarm clocks? We're gonna do that like a million times on that ball. Just one of them almost broke a window when Black chucked it, remember? Imagine what we could do with a bunch of them."
"I don't know if I want to."
"Oh, you'll see." James grins. "I've a plan."
"What did you have to go to the Restricted Section for, though? You did the spell perfectly last time."
James shifts the books again. "Wanted to, er, read up on the theory. I'm knackered, good night." And he dives onto his four-poster and pulls the curtains shut.
"So I guess we're doing a Super Ball prank now?" Sirius asks him the next morning. They're crossing the common room for the portrait hole. "We haven't got enough on our plates, trying to be Animagi without him finding out?"
"Rest assured, Black, you won't regret it," James says. "Lying to Remus gave me the best idea, listen to this..."
***
"How many have you got now?" James asks.
Sirius peers into his bag and counts. "Five," he says.
The Geminio spell is a difficult one— James told them, quite casually, that he found it in an O.W.L. spellbook— but that doesn't stop Sirius from getting the hang of it in about fifteen minutes. It's annoying, being friends with the smartest kids in the school. Peter's sat in the common room three evenings in a row trying to get the spell to work, but the Super Ball under his wand stayed stubbornly singular. Sirius, on the other hand, is sticking his wand under the table and muttering the incantation even now, in the middle of Potions.
Peter's the only one of the three who's actually working on the assigned potion. Sirius continues multiplying Super Balls while James busies himself with sulking.
"Merlin, he looked awful, didn't he? He looked awful."
"He always looks awful," Sirius points out. They visited Remus in the hospital wing during lunch.
"Yeah, but especially today. And you saw how moony he was right before. His fulls are getting worse, I reckon."
Peter doesn't say anything, just gets to chopping up rat tails for the Hair-Raising Potion. Secretly, he suspects James is projecting a bit. Ever since he introduced the Animagus idea, the full moon seems to effect James worse than it does Remus. It's as if every transformation their friend goes through alone is personally offensive to him. Peter thinks he's being rather dramatic. Which isn't, after all, so out of character for James, but still.
Peter would never ever say it out loud, but he doesn't think the Animagus plan will work. The three of them keep going through these big dusty books, but they never make any more sense than the first time they read them. Sirius and James, brilliant geniuses that they are, haven't seemed at all discouraged by this yet.
But Peter knows he isn't like them. The horrible sinking feeling of not belonging fills his stomach every time one of them brings it up, because he knows he won't be able to do it. Even if they do get past the first research stage, what happens when the three of them try to actually do the spell and Peter can't pull it off? Will James and Sirius laugh at him? Never speak to him again?
"Can't we just tell him about the, er, thing already?" Sirius says. "It'd cheer him up, and it'd let us move a hell of a lot faster if we didn't have to keep it secret."
"Don't be daft, you remember how he was when I first brought it up. It's got to stay a secret, and that's that."
"What about once we've got it? Can't keep it a secret then."
"He'll be so happy and proud of us that he won't even remember to be angry, trust me."
"Quite enough chit-chat, boys!" Slughorn calls across the room. "Can't be falling behind— it's got to have time to stew, you see."
"Got to have time to stew," James mimics under his breath. "When am I ever going to need to raise somebody's hair? We've got bigger fish to fry."
"Let's just get it done quickly, then," says Sirius. He grabs the cutting board from Peter and swaps it with the mortar and pestle. "You chop too slow, crush up the lavender instead." He takes the knife in one hand, his wand still in the other, and begins to chop and spell under the table at once.
"Is that a good idea?" Peter asks.
"Yeah, I've got it," Sirius says. He looks down into his bag while chopping. "Geminio."
"I'll grant you're right about the 'secret' part slowing us down," James says, measuring out dried lavender. "At least we've had a couple of days to research without him underfoot. I don't suppose you lot have found anything new?"
"Y'know, I was thinking about this one thing," Sirius answers. Still juggling wand and knife, he starts a new rat tail. "I know we reckoned that the 'initial bodily transformative draught ritual' thing the book mentions a thousand times is that big weird recipe at the beginning, remember, but I was wondering if maybe that's not it at all, if it's something else entirely? Like, before any of the stuff in the book, there's another ritual you have to do first before any of it and that before you— ouch." The knife clatters to the table, the blade splattered red.
"Er," Peter says.
James hasn't noticed, busy with his lavender. "I reckon that would make sense, it'd explain why the big weird recipe doesn't make any sense compared to the stuff the book talks about later. But then what would the first ritual be? Some other potion, I guess, but where do we get that? We've been up and down the Restricted Section, what do we do now? Merlin's pants, I don't even know where to start with this whole thing— seems like all the books assume you know loads to begin with. Plus, it's right annoying how much potions stuff is involved. I'm spectacular at Transfiguration, sure, but potions? I don't—"
"Er," Peter says again, more urgently this time.
"Shut up, Pete," Sirius mutters. He clutches his left hand with his right, applying enough pressure to the cut to turn his knuckles white, but still a continuous stream of blood runs from under his fingers. It rolls quickly down the blue-white skin of his inner forearm, a thin trickle of red pooling in the crook of his elbow with surreal speed.
Finally James looks up. His eyes go wide. "Professor!"
Sirius glares at him. "It's nothing, James, shut up!" He struggles to shake his sleeve down without letting go of his steadily bleeding hand. "It's not deep, so just—"
"It's deep enough, you shut up," James snaps. "Professor Slughorn!"
Slughorn turns and peers over at them. Spotting the blood, he says, "Oh dear, can't have that! Hang on, dear boy, I always keeps bandages..." He strolls over to his desk and picks through the top drawer. "For such spills as these, all very normal, naturally—"
"Sir, I think he ought to go to the hospital wing."
Slughorn laughs, surprised. "Oh, I hardly think so, I've got all the necessary right here, so just sit tight for a moment Mr Black, I'll—"
But he stops short. He slides the drawer closed and looks up at Sirius. "Mr...Mr Black, yes, of course, how silly of me, yes indeed—"
Suddenly much less casual now, Slughorn crosses the room to Sirius, gets him to his feet, and wraps a rag around his hand. With a hand on Sirius' shoulder he walks him briskly to the door. "Forgetfulness, dear boy, you'll see when you're my age— so silly of me to forget, the family resemblance is so striking— why, you and Miss Bellatrix could be siblings! Can't imagine how it slipped my mind, about the, ah, well. Well, it's the trouble with family, you see: some genetic gifts are more, ah, troublesome than others! Yes, send you straight to Poppy, she'll set you right as rain."
The whole classroom is staring by the time they reach the threshold. Sirius' face is red and he glares fixedly at the floor.
"The rest of you, I want those Hair-Raising Potions finished when I get back!"
The door shuts behind them, and chatter resumes. Peter turns to James. "I forgot about that."
"So does he, sometimes," James says with a roll of his eyes. "Let's finish this up, then we'll go back to the hospital wing again. I swear, Madam Pomfrey sees the four of us more than anybody else in the whole school by now."
"We do have a knack for getting injured," Peter says. He takes the rat tails and gets back to chopping— carefully, carefully— and feels embarrassed on Sirius' behalf. Sirius hates having to mention his family disease at all, they all know that; having it paraded in front of everybody must've been torture.
Sure enough, when they stop by the hospital wing at break it's to find Sirius sitting cross-legged on a bed, fully dressed on top of the covers. His arms are folded over his chest, complementing the murderous look on his face. The second he spots them, he barks, "What the hell, Potter?"
James drops down onto the bed next to him while Peter takes a nearby chair. "Was supposed to let you bleed out, was I?"
"I wasn't going to— it's not like it was gushing blood, you twat, that's not how haemophilia works!"
"I know how it works," James says patiently, stretching his legs out on the bed. "You'd've kept bleeding all over the place for hours and hours, and then you'd get all dizzy, and then I'd have to drag you kicking and screaming all the way down here so Madam Pomfrey could give you the clotting stuff before you passed out." Sirius hmphs, but James goes on cheerfully as ever. "I reckon getting it out of the way quickly will save everybody a lot of time and bloodstains."
Again Sirius hmphs, and again James ignores him. A few moments of silence go by before Sirius snarls, "I'm not fragile."
"'Course you're not," James says bracingly. "Not your fault your family's all inbred mutants."
"They— they call it the 'royal disease', don't they?" Peter asks. He's been curious for a long time, but there's never been a good moment to ask. Sirius doesn't bring it up if he can help it. "The Blacks aren't related to Muggle royalty, are they?"
Sirius growls a little in the back of his throat, an irritable sound. "Yeah. They got it from us, actually."
"I...what?"
He growls again. "It's a long story and it's boring and I hate it."
"Well, now we're curious," James says. "Go on, bore us."
After letting out a heavy sigh, Sirius talks to the far opposite wall in a bored voice. "There's been magical blood in the French and British monarchies for basically forever and that's where we came from, yeah. Wizards who left the Muggle royalty to start their own magical one, pretty much." He rolls his eyes. "That's why everybody in my stupid family acts like they rule the world, even though there's hardly any of us left." He sighs again before rattling off, "The family split sometime around the tenth century in France, the Muggle side became the Plantagenets and ruled Britain and such— they say Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of us, the sides crossed over a lot until the Statute of Secrecy— and the wizards became the Blacks."
James gapes. "Your family's been around since the tenth century?"
"Or eleventh, something like that," he answers. Sirius apparently notices the shocked looks on both of their faces but misinterprets them entirely when he says, "What? You'd remember all of that too if your governess threatened you in French whenever you got details wrong."
Peter doesn't know what to say and James doesn't seem to either. To fill the suddenly uncomfortable silence, Sirius goes on.
"Yeah, you cook up all sorts of funny mutations when you keep marrying your relatives. Muggle monarchies got the disease from us but they haven't had it in ages, they've had the sense to branch out. We haven't." He shrugs. "We're only getting more desperate as time goes on, seems like: my parents are second cousins. Now it's down to Reg and me; if neither of us has kids, the direct line's finished."
Sirius looks down at his hand and begins picking absently at the bandage there. "I hope we don't. It's about time we died out. Sickly little beasts, all of us."
The silence goes on so long that Peter opens his mouth, willing something to come out. "My granddad's family all worked in shipyards," is what he ends up saying. "That's— that's as far back as I know."
Sirius shakes his head. "Merlin, you're lucky."
"But, but—" Peter stammers, "your family were kings and queens! That's, er, something, isn't it?"
"It's something," Sirius snaps, "a bloody awful something. Think it's nice, having a thousand years of pureblood lunatics behind you? You heard Slughorn— I look like them, I talk like them, and my stupid pure blood can't even stay in its own stupid body." He crosses his arms again, staring sulkily down at the bedspread. "You're lucky."
For as long as he's known him, Peter has always been a bit jealous of Sirius. Well, maybe not jealous, exactly. He always took it for granted that Sirius must look down on him, or feel sorry for him, or...something.
He certainly never expected Sirius to feel jealous of him.
***
Sirius doesn't get a lot of chances to hang out with Lily. James finally believes that he doesn't fancy her (though why he even cares so bloody much is another matter), but he still acts funny about the whole thing. Sirius takes the opportunity on Saturday; Remus isn't back from the hospital wing yet and Peter has gone off to the pitch with James to watch Quidditch practise.
Lily takes him into the out-of-order girl's bathroom on the second floor. From the stall at the end they hear Moaning Myrtle wailing theatrically somewhere around the U-bend.
"She just wants attention, she'll leave eventually," Lily says as she tugs him toward the cracked and dusty mirror. She shakes her thick red hair free of its elastic band. "Here, I'll show you that spell."
The incantation works much better for her than it does for him; her hair goes all smooth and shiny, but his doesn't do much of anything. She hums, scrunching her face thoughtfully.
"Your hair's got a lot of curl to it, I expect that makes it harder. Hang on."
She stands behind him, combs her fingers through his hair, takes individual locks and points her wand at them. They talk while she works.
"How was your holiday?"
"It was nice," Lily answers. "Nice to see my family, of course."
Of course, Sirius thinks. "And your sister?"
He sees her make a face in the mirror. "Tuney's been...funny. But yeah, it's nice to see her." Her fingers land on a tangle; she picks it apart carefully. "Though I suppose seeing your family's no fun at all."
He grimaces. "Not at all, no. I did get to use the pencil you gave me, though."
Sirius didn't have the eye pencil on around his family after the first time, but he did wear it out a couple of times when he went to see Brianna. She did a sort of happy squeal and said he looked like 'a little Bolan', which made him smile. Malcolm was there the next time. He laughed so hard he doubled over, and Brianna smacked him.
"Did you?" Lily says, excited. "How'd it look?"
"Wobbly," he recalls. "Not nearly as nice as when you do it."
"I'll help you, then. You'll get better, it just takes practice."
"Yeah."
All of a sudden he feels distracted. The topic of the pencil's made Sirius think about what happened at Christmas, which makes him think about...other stuff. He hasn't felt right since that morning. He's felt completely terrible, actually. It seems like James' affirmation about there being 'poofs in the world' should've set the matter at rest— confirm that Regulus really wasn't pulling his leg, and Sirius could go on with his life and stop thinking about it. But he hasn't stopped thinking about it. Not at all.
He feels rather sick about it. All the time.
"Lily," he says, and his stomach is roiling worse than ever. "If I tell you something will you not tell anybody?"
She tilts her head, curious. "'Course."
"You've got to swear," he says. It's funny how as soon as his stomach got wind of what he's about to do it started protesting. Maybe it's trying to kill him before he does anything stupid.
"I swear."
"On your mother?"
"Yeah."
Now his heart's racing, like it's trying to give itself a heart attack. He'll feel better if he tells somebody. If only his body would stop trying to kill him for it. He looks around the dingy bathroom. There's nobody here; even Moaning Myrtle's gone elsewhere.
He's a Gryffindor.
"I don't think I like girls," he says. "I mean, in the way blokes usually do."
Lily hums, nods slowly. "You know, I had started to get a feeling you mightn't."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Boys usually act really stupid when they talk to me."
"Even if they don't fancy you?"
"Yeah. If you're a girl and you're pretty, boys generally act stupid when they talk to you, they don't necessarily have to fancy you."
"And you're really pretty."
"Yeah, so they act even dumber. It's how it works, unfortunately. Mum says it gets different when you get older but I dunno if I believe her."
"That's too bad."
"Yeah. You never did, though."
He looks down into the chipped sink. "I think I like boys better."
"That makes sense."
"I didn't know that was something that happened, but Reg told me about it and it...I dunno." He shrugs, picks at the funny engraving on the side of the tap. "It made sense."
"Yeah, it happens. Lots of people are like that."
"What have you heard about it?" he asks. "Not...not good things?"
"Well, no, not at all good," she says grudgingly. "But they say bad things about Muggle-borns and I don't mind being one of those. I imagine it's similar."
Sirius looks up at her in the mirror. Her expression is even. "James doesn't know," he says. "Do you think he'd be revolted?"
"I don't think he would. He's your best friend, isn't he?"
"But wouldn't he be afraid I fancied him?"
"Do you?"
"Euugh, gross. No way."
"Well, there you go." She twists a long curl of his hair around her finger, runs her wand over it. "I should think he'd see it as more girls for him, then. You're the best-looking boy in the year, it's rather lucky for him, really."
"I am?" he says, surprised.
She rolls her eyes. "Of course."
"I don't think I'm going to tell him, though. I...don't want to."
"You haven't got to. But he's your friend, he won't be revolted. It's not allowed of friends."
James has never cared that Remus is a werewolf. He never even cared that Sirius is a stupid slimy Black.
Sirius nods. "Yeah. I reckon it isn't."
He knows Lily's right. But still he finds himself thinking later that day that, now he's gotten it off his chest, maybe it wouldn't be so awful to never tell anybody else ever again.
***
✨This is chapter 4✨