"Where are Marlene and Sirius?" Remus asked before filling his mouth full of food. His question was directed towards anyone who had the answer, but there were only two people who knew that. Dorcas shrugged.
"Not sure, haven't seen them since this morning." Em replied, before looking over at Lily with a questioning look in her eye. Lily had to give it to her, she didn't miss a trick. Lily subtly told Em that she would explain later, with the SOS motion they had developed for situations that the boys just didn't need to know about.
"Oh god, I forgot they're doing that thing, right?" Lily said.
"Oh yeah.. that thing!" She said, half heartedly rolling her eyes. Lily kicked Emmeline under the table.
"Ouc- I mean yeah that thing that they planned! You know Remus that one.." She trailed off, before kicking Lily back under the table.
"The anniversary thing? That's not till tomorrow. I didn't know Sirius went through with that, did you James?" Remus said innocently, not realising what he had just announced. James looked at Lily's suddenly interested face and sighed.
"Rem?" Dorcas asked, sliding closer to him on the bench and putting her hand on his shoulder.
"Oh shit, they didn't know did they?" Remus said looking up at James with a guilty look on his face. James shook his head and held up his hands.
"Moony mate, you're getting yourself out of this one. I'm going to quidditch practice, see you later?" James said, standing up.
"Sure thing." Lily grinned before turning her attention back to Remus.
"So fancy letting us in on this one?" Emmeline asked, leaning into the conversation.
Remus looked up at Frank, who was sat on the other side of Dorcas and mouthed 'help.' Frank laughed and got up, "I'm outta here man, before you dig the hole even deeper."
Remus sighed as Dorcas slid her hand onto his thigh. "Don't you dare." He whispered looking up at her.
"What?" She asked, faking innocence. "I haven't done anything wrong Remus!" Dorcas giggled as she moved her hand up his leg. He flushed red.
"Okay stop, I'll tell you." He looked over at Dorcas. "I'm not kidding, do not tease me like that." He said.
"Alright alright you two can finish whatever that was later, what was he going to do?!" Emmeline asked, excited.
"Well you know it's been a year since Marlene conned Sirius into admitting he had feelings for her?"
"No hunny," Lily started. "We all know how that happened, I don't know what Sirius told you but she didn't con anything out of him." The girls laughed and Remus looked around, confused.
"Why what happened?"Remus asked.
"They were having sex and Sirius told her he loved her, not this or it, he said straight up that he loved her." Emmeline informed Remus, very matter of factly.
Remus went from shocked to amused. "Then what?"
"Then she told him they couldn't carry on they way they were if he meant it. And we know how bad he is at lying to her."Emmeline laughed.
"But when Lily and I caught them they said they weren't in a relationship?" Remus was now very confused.
"Okay okay, let me continue this story." Lily said.
"From the beginning? I love this story a lot." Dorcas grinned and leaned forward. "You always tell it so well Lils."
"Of course, anything for you Doe." She winked. "We all know that they started getting together, having sex in fifth year right? In broom closets and anywhere they didn't think anyone would catch them. But they couldn't keep their hands off each other, so when they both excused themselves from a History of Magic lesson at the end of fifth year, I also excused myself and they were literally doing it in the corridor outside. They swore on the spot that it was a one time thing, but I didn't really believe them, they were too familiar with the concept you know? They got out of the lesson so easily it was almost like clockwork. I was sat with Remus in History of Magic at the start of sixth year, remember? It happened again, they both left and came back twenty minutes later. At first I thought maybe they were just talking, but no. Marls' skirt was on backwards." All four of them were laughing at the memory.
"So I spoke to her about it, and she said it happened a couple of times, but not regularly or anything. At this point our groups were starting to get closer, smaller classes and everything. Marlene and Sirius got really close, were inseparable for the most part. Always in trouble, always laughing and always together. I asked her the same question, 'What's going on with Sirius?' and this time she denied any feelings for him and I knew it was bullshit, because anyone with a brain, apart from James of course could see that something more was going on. But the difference was she didn't deny them having sex anymore, she denied feelings."
"And you came to me." Remus grinned.
"Exactly my dear friend. I needed someone who was friends with Sirius to find out what he would say when asked the question, and to help me figure out what was happening. Because now that they spent so much time together, nobody noticed if they wandered into an empty classroom together! And when Remus asked Sirius about Marlene, what did he say Remus?"
"I believe the exact words he used were: What about Mckinnon? We're just friends."
"And the nickname Mckinnon was born." Lily grinned. "We spent months trying to catch them out, but they'd gotten better at hiding it, because shortly after the backwards skirt incident James had mentioned them being close, and made a comment to Sirius about him never going near his little sister. Scared the shit out of Sirius that did, so they got good at hiding it, and sneaking around. Then we struck gold Remus, Christmas party of sixth year, we were all stood chatting and swapping presents, and I noticed that neither of them were anywhere to be seen."
"I love this part." Dorcas giggled like a little girl hearing her bedtime story.
"We waited for the right moment, and slipped out of the party and up towards the boys dorms. Opened the door and there they were, hadn't even locked the door."
"That's because Marls drank half a bottle of fire whisky." Emmeline commented.
"Yeah, and Sirius had the other half, because they didn't even deny it, they just told us they didn't know what they were, but that they didn't want anyone else to know. Made us promise to keep quiet for the time being then asked us if we would shut the door on the way out. We nearly died, remember Remus? The next morning they came down to breakfast, still drunk."
"Oh Merlin, I remember she had those sunglasses on, and Sirius' shirt from the previous night." Lupin laughed at the memory.
"Not only did she have sunglasses on in december, she had Sirius' white shirt, with her black bra underneath, clearly visible let me remind you. And the pencil skirt makes it's return, backwards again."
"Didn't she have one heel on?" Emmeline asked, remembering more as Lily told the story.
"Yep, don't even get me started on what Sirius was wearing, but I just told them to turn back around and look at themselves in the mirror. But they sat down anyway, nibbling at bits of food. Then Marlene looks up at me, and then at Remus and then back to Sirius. She points to us, and goes 'Did you er-' she shakes her head and drinks some orange juice, but Sirius was thinking at this point. He looks at her, then back at us and they both just went 'shit.' It was one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed in my entire life, but also one of the best moments, because from their reaction me and Remus knew that they weren't just messing around anymore, because we had a reaction. Something they had never let us have before, but they looked at each other, shrugged then told us to keep our mouths shut before walking back to the common room."
"Sad I missed that." Dorcas said.
"Now we had what we needed. Enough to corner them and try to get them to admit they liked each other. But we severely underestimated Sirius and Marlene, and their ability to be stubborn, in denial and really really ignorant. We both hammered on at them for months, constantly quizzing them about each other, they hated every moment of it. Same answer every single time, 'Can't we have some fun?' or 'There is no feelings involved'. Then this time last year I was nagging at Marlene and she blushed, something that didn't usually happen when you said Sirius' name to her, it was usually followed by some rude remark, or a comment about their sex life." Lily shuddered.
"This is where Sirius lied to you Remus, they were having sex in your dorm while we were all studying apparently, and he told her he loved her. Like Em said, not a little, "I love this." It was a, "I love you Mckinnon." If you thought she was confused about them before, she sure as hell was confused now. Told me that she had pretended he hadn't said anything because they were happy as they were, but she asked me what I would do, if someone like Sirius said something like that to me, in such a compromising position. And I told her, I said that I wouldn't want to carry on the way they have been, because he obviously means more to her than he's been admitting, then I asked her if she liked him more than she had admitted to him and her face said it all."
"The next time they were alone she asked him about it, and he asked her what would change anyway. And I don't actually know what she said back, but after that they started acting more like a couple, still denied being in a relationship, but not the feelings anymore. Slowly the rest of you found out one way or another, and one day Sirius just asked where his girlfriend was, and she started doing the same to him, calling him her boyfriend that is and the rest is history."
"She told him it meant he couldn't get with anyone else, if he meant it." Remus told the girls.
They stared at him, then Dorcas whispered, "No way."
"He actually committed to her?" Em asked Remus. He nodded.
"Wow." All three girls said at once, not believing what they had just heard.
"Wait you never told us what he was doing for the anniversary!" Emmeline said.
"What is that an anniversary of anyway? Because none of the things Lily just said happened on one of those dates!" Dorcas complained.
"That's a story for a different time ladies, now if you'll excuse us." Remus said standing up and holding his hand out for Dorcas. She looked at the other two, "Later." They nodded and she took Remus' hand, leading him out of the hall and onto the grounds.