Chapter Text
Ever since Sirius first coined the phrase at the ripe age of eleven, Crepe Saturday has always been the same: an entire twelve (or twenty-four, if his weed supply is robust enough) hour period dedicated to perfecting crepes. It was the first bake Sirius had ever attempted himself, standing on a chair in his own sterile kitchen while the cook watched from the doorway, her arthritic fingers stretched halfway towards the phone in case he succeeded in burning down the house.
Sirius didn’t mean to begin baking, although it’s not the sort of thing that tends to happen accidentally. At first it was a way to get messy and piss off his mum. As he moved on from singed crepes to more advanced bakes, however, baking soon became more: a process he could master and control, with attractive results that managed to win over teachers and half his year.
(More importantly, his double chocolate brownies provided a satisfactory offering when Sirius began courting James and Peter for friendship. After Sirius had persuaded the kitchen staff at his new boarding school to let him in - dropping his last name as the final push - and spread the dessert throughout the boys’ dormitories, James had promptly informed Peter that they were officially adopting the new student.)
It’s fitting, then, that the whole business starts on the 416th Crepe Saturday.
They’re all in various positions in the kitchen of their flat: Sirius hovering over the stove, spatula in hand; Peter making indecent noises of pleasure, eyes closed to enjoy the crepe in his mouth and to ignore the nearly-sentient masses of powdered sugar and flour in the corners of the room; and James chewing with his mouth open and watching the tiny television propped up on their counter, eyebrows furrowed.
“Yunee foappy foabaaof,” James mumbles around the crepe in his mouth, gesticulating at the television with a fork.
Sirius, much familiar with James-speak, translates.
“I need to apply for the bake off?” Sirius asks. James nods.
Sirius looks over at the screen, where a rerun of the Great British Bake Off is playing. The visual had cut to an attractive shot of two sheep munching on swaying, dew-soaked green grass. Sirius doesn’t know much about the show, but he has to at least applaud the cinematography.
“It was an advert,” James says, swallowing. He pokes his fork at the screen once more. “They’re taking applications, for a special season for people under twenty-five.”
Back on the screen, several middle aged women work their dough, sleeves rolled up to their elbows. One is making what appears to be the beginnings of a walnut cinnamon roll.
“My good looks are made for the camera,” Sirius says. James throws his crepe at him.
After Sirius finishes cursing, James continues. “Think of it, Pads. Your soulful eyes gazing at the camera as you tuck your jet black hair behind your ears. The bad boy with a sensitive soul is the archetype everyone is going for these days. Have you read Twilight?”
“Baking is very sensitive,” Peter says. “And what you make tastes decent, anyway.”
“You have a leather jacket and baking skill. I’d fuck you,” James judges.
“As if you could handle me,” says Sirius, and the conversation is sidetracked as Peter covers his ears and begins to wail about James and fucking men and the woes of being the only straight person in the room.
That night, however, as Sirius lays in his bed thinking about how long it’s been since he’s had a proper lay, James’s words comes back to him. The idea is appealing; for all his experience, Sirius has never been able to see what he can do compared to everyone else. The competitive streak in him itches to get on the screen and see how he matches up to the other contestants. Sirius has never been the most humble of people, but he’s certain that it’s not his arrogance talking when he thinks about how good his bakes are. If his creme brulee was able to win over his fourth year class, why should it not win over the entirety of Britain?
As he scrolls through the website and downloads the application, the tiny voice in Sirius’s head that sounds suspiciously like his mother’s reminds him that it’s not like he’s doing anything else these days. He thinks of his bike and his several uni credits, and blows a giant raspberry at the voice to drown out what sounds vaguely like delinquent and philosophy is not what I would call a degree.
Sirius fills out the application that night and - although he would deny it - refreshes his email every ten minutes for the next three days until a response appears, the subject line reading “Application Received: More Information Requested”.
The following weeks are a blur, as he interviews with a very busy looking woman in a power suit and balances samples of cakes and cookies on his bike to drive to preliminary judging sessions. Several weeks in, he’s invited to bake something on camera in front of the Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. Sirius makes a simple apple pie with pecan-infused crust, and hyperventilates half the flour after he’s finished until an intern tell him that he’s free to go and should expect a response within a week. Sirius spends several hours afterwards sitting in a dingy diner, stress-eating pie and practicing deep breathing exercises.
Somehow, after several days of drinking before noon, he gets a phone call.
Not looking at the number, Sirius accepts the call. “Hello?”
“Is this Sirius Black?” says a tinny voice on the other end, deep and authoritative, and for a brief wild moment Sirius wonders if this is about the fact that he hasn’t paid his taxes.
“I’m glad to inform you that you’ve been accepted as a contestant on the Great British Bake Off,” the phone says, and Sirius lets out a deep sigh.
He thanks the phone, tunes out the rest of the message which is presumably telling him about contracts and other dull business. If they wanted him to pay attention, they should have texted instead of called, like everyone else born in the last thirty years.
James and Peter creep into the room as he’s listening, and Sirius puts on speakerphone so they can listen in. He manages to end the call with a quick “thank you” before Peter shoves a bottle of cheap wine into his hand and James tackles him (as he is often wont to do), knocking the phone halfway across the room
In the following dreary weeks of late winter, the only bright punctuations from the gray are the frequent batches of letters and emails containing contracts and questionnaires and shooting schedules. Sirius keeps them in the back of his mind, a steady constant, and eventually their appearance goes almost unnoticed in favor of lecture topics and James’s jokes and trying to remember what exactly happened to Peter’s wallet at the pub the night before.
The first day it’s warm enough to walk outside without gloves on, however, Sirius gets an inkling that the competition should be starting soon.
He checks a calendar (James’s, of course, because he’s the only one who can be trusted on to know not only the month but also the day of the week, the overachiever) and nearly has a heart attack. He’s not the most organized of people, but someone should have given him a warning before he realized all on his own that the competition begins in exactly one month.
Sirius closes his eyes, does some more deep breathing, and prepares to plan his strategy of attack. He’s been baking since before puberty. If anyone’s got this in the bag, it’s him.