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“So, it’s been almost two months,” Remus started.
“What?” James said, distractedly. Black ought to be getting out of class and coming down this hallway toward the great hall any moment now. He’d miss it if he weren’t careful.
“We were wondering if you were thinking of asking out any girls to Hogsmeade with you next week.”
“Not really,” James said, then what Remus had said actually penetrated his brain, and he whipped around to stare. “Wait, why would I be asking girls to Hogsmeade, and why do you care?”
“Because you and Lily broke up a month after school started back up, and we haven’t seen you with anyone since,” Remus said. He was giving James concerned supportive eyes. James glared at them.
“We want to make sure you’re not moping,” Peter added, unnecessarily helpful as usual.
“Moping?” James demanded, detouring around a whispering gaggle of fourth years. He narrowly missed the protruding edge of one of the boys’ book bags; from the grunt that immediately followed, Peter had been less successful. “Why would I mope?”
“It’s been known to happen,” Remus said, mildly.
Peter nodded. “Like when Lily was always turning you down.”
“She turned me down twice. Twice,” James said.
“Yes,” agreed Remus. “And you were like a thundercloud both times.”
James stopped, right in the middle of the corridor, and planted his fists on his hips. After a few steps, Remus and Peter stopped, too, and turned to him.
“I,” he said, “do not thundercloud. Over Lily, or anyone else.”
Remus raised his eyebrows. “So, then, there isn’t another girl.”
“No, there aren’t any other girls,” James said, half a lie, catching a flash of green and silver out of the corner of his eye. He lifted a hand and dragged it through his hair. “Seriously.”
Stepping to the side so a couple of Slytherins could pass, Remus and Peter exchanged brief looks, Remus frowning and Peter shaking his head. James’s eyes slid past them, because the Slytherins were—that was—
The Blacks.
Black’s hair was as perfect as ever, not a strand of it out of place and all of it so impossibly shiny, the sweep of it over his forehead as he bent toward Black the Younger doing nothing to disguise the exquisite lines of his face. James had been trying for weeks now to come up with anyone who had such perfect bone structure, and been coming up consistently blank. Not even Black the Younger was that pretty.
“And you’re really not moping?” Remus asked.
“I’m not. No moping here, I swear,” James said, only half his attention on his friends, the rest of it on the backs of the two Slytherins as they walked away. Sirius Black had his arm around the shoulders of his brother, who seemed to be suffering through it with very little patience. Black was almost, almost grinning.
Remus sighed. “Well. All right. If you say so.”
“Why do you sound sceptical,” James asked, dragging his eyes away from Black’s shoulders. “Neither of you are dating anyone, either, why do I have to be?”
“You don’t have to be, we were just worried that maybe you weren’t because of Lily.”
“That’s rubbish,” James muttered.
“Well, we know that now,” Peter said. Next to him, Remus looked like they knew no such thing, but he was willing to entertain the possibility.
“Lily and I decided we’d make better friends,” James said, firmly, and not for the first time.
“I know, but you have to admit, that really doesn’t preclude the possibility of you pining,” Remus said.
“I don’t pine,” James lied, and more truthfully added, “Certainly not over Lily.”
Still frowning, Remus eyed him, all critical. “So, you don’t still have romantic feelings for her?” he asked.
“Friends,” James insisted. “Lily and I are friends. I don’t care if she dates Snape.”
Peter gasped. “No!”
“Okay, you’re right, I’d care in that case, because he’s vile, I’d mind if anyone dated him, but—Lily is my friend only.”
Remus’s face cleared. He smiled. “Well, then. If you’re sure.”
“Yes,” James groaned. “Merlin, can this conversation be over yet?”
“We’re late for dinner,” Remus said, mildly, and started off down the corridor again.
“I’m starved,” Peter said, going after him.
James thought some very unkind things about people who made him miss a prime view of that softer smirk Black only shared with Black the Younger, and followed his nosy friends down to the Great Hall.
#
It was early enough when Sirius got down to breakfast that Regulus wasn’t there yet, so he slipped into one of the nearest empty seats at the Slytherin table without making eye contact with anyone. Not that anyone even tried, but it was the principle of the thing.
Sirius had barely taken a bite when there was a minor commotion at the door. He looked up quickly, just as Potter came strutting in, all confidence and warmth, like he knew he was exactly where he belonged and so happy about it that he wanted to share it with everyone. He was carrying his book bag draped over his shoulder, hooked on the first two fingers of his right hand, and making broad, sweeping gestures with his left while he spoke to Lupin and Pettigrew, the fabric of his sleeves pulled taut over his arms.
They were too tight, again. Every year, his robes would start out fitting perfectly, and a month or two after he got back out on the Quidditch pitch regularly, they’d be straining at the seams. Sirius only wished it were still warm enough for Potter to be making a habit of rolling his sleeves to the elbows.
Sirius tilted his head down a little to be less obvious, watching through his lashes as Potter made his way over to the Gryffindor table, waving and calling out greetings every couple of steps.
“Look at him,” Severus muttered, from the seat two—unfortunately empty—spaces down the table.
“Who?” Sirius asked, even though he was pretty sure he knew.
“That Potter,” Severus said, and Sirius could practically see the little bits of spittle coming out along with the words. “Swanning around like he thinks he’s all that.”
“He is,” Sirius pointed out.
Severus glared.
“What? He is. Head Boy, Quidditch Captain, practically top of his class, has a gorgeous, clever girlfriend—what isn’t there to be proud about?”
“He’s an arrogant bully,” Severus said, sneering.
Sirius was really beginning to regret his choice of seat; venom wasn’t a great complement for toast and eggs. At the very least, he shouldn’t have engaged with Severus and his complaints du jour. He’d heard enough for the week, just from the other side of the common room last night.
“And you’re a petty, bitter prick,” Sirius said, meeting Severus’s resulting glare with a flat look, and stabbing his fork brutally into his eggs. “Nobody goes around acting like you should be tossed off the Astronomy Tower.”
“I could toss you,” Severus snapped.
Sirius snorted. “Oh, yeah, in your dreams, Severus.”
“I wouldn’t dream of you, Sirius, even if I was under the Imperius,” Severus said.
“Thank Salazar for small favours,” Sirius shot back.
“Why are you defending Potter? He doesn’t like you any more than the rest of our lot.”
“I’m not defending him,” Sirius lied through his teeth, gritted to prevent himself from arguing at being grouped in with Severus over anything. They were both Slytherins, that’s all Severus had meant by it, and Sirius couldn’t argue that no matter how much he wanted to sometimes. “Anyway I wouldn’t need to defend him, not from the likes of you.”
Severus’s beady eyes narrowed. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”
“That you’re a small-minded child who’s just envious he’s got all of that and Evans besides,” Sirius said. “And you’ve got none of it, including Evans.” He paused, for effect, and arched one brow. “Especially Evans.”
“What do you know about it,” Severus said, with an expression like he’d very much enjoy slicing Sirius into bits. Extremely small bits.
“I have eyes. And you’re kind of obvious with your creepy possessive longing.”
Severus pressed his lips together until they were so thin they practically disappeared. He stared at Sirius, visibly seething inside. Sirius gave him a cold smirk.
“You’re so smug, but really, you’re no better than Potter, are you?”
“And that,” Sirius said, abandoning his breakfast and getting to his feet, “is why I’m not friends with you.”
#
There was already somebody in James’s favourite carrell in the library.
It was Black.
James must’ve made some kind of surprised noise—which he was angry at himself about, he was very good at staying quiet when he was surprised, half the professors would know about the invisibility cloak by now if he wasn’t—because Black turned away from the slim volume he’d been hunched around, and looked over.
His face went through half a dozen tiny not-expressions, settling finally on something James was choosing to interpret as amused, and by the time James looked away from his face again, his hands were empty. Maybe they had been before?
“Oh, Potter,” Black said, twisting around and propping his stupidly slender hips against the edge of the study desk. “It’s you.”
No, he’d definitely been holding a book.
Something like glee shivered up James’s spine—here was a perfect excuse to pester Black, in an official capacity, even. James couldn’t have asked for better.
“Yes, Black, it’s me,” he said, crossing his arms. “The Head Boy.”
Black’s left eyebrow twitched. “So you are,” he said, and it felt almost like a victory.
“What are you doing in the library, Black?”
“Revising,” Black promptly replied, not a single beat missed.
That felt less like a victory, but only slightly. James snorted. “Please, the term is practically over, and anyway, you haven’t revised a day in the last two years.”
“And how would you know that, exactly?” Black said, suddenly intent, like maybe he was about to get off the desk and advance on James.
James made the very wise decision to ignore Black’s question. It was better all around. “The point is, I don’t believe you,” he said. “In fact, if you were revising, I’ll eat my hat.”
“You’re not wearing a hat.”
“And you’re not revising.”
Instead of advancing, like James had been half-hoping he would, Black gave him a smirking little not-a-smile, kicking James’s heart beat up a couple of notches. He—shimmied, or something, a bit on the desk, resettling with one leg cocked up and resting on top of it to the knee, his legs parted. How he could do that in robes and not look ridiculous—
“So now we’re both masters of the obvious,” Black said.
“Come on, Black, what are you really doing in here?” James pressed.
“It’s the library.”
“Yeah, I’m aware of what room it is.”
“It’s open to everyone. Why do you care that I’m in here?”
“I told you, I’m the Head Boy.”
For a half a second, Black’s eyes narrowed. “Is this about me showing you up in Transfiguration the other day last week?” he asked.
Thrown, James stared at him, and wondered if he’d misheard. Black kept looking back challengingly, though, so apparently James hadn’t.
“No, it’s not,” he said.
Black didn’t look like he believed that. “Sure it’s not.”
“It really isn’t,” James snapped, wishing he knew how to say that he liked watching Black be brilliant—that the cool half-smile and the steady, confident look in Black’s eyes made James want to get on his knees and give up—but James couldn’t even think where to start explaining something like that. Even if he could’ve, he didn’t think Black would believe him. Instead, he added, “Anyway, I wasn’t in top form then.”
“Oh, really. And why was that?” Black asked, his tone deeply sceptical.
James bit the inside of his cheek. Not like he could explain a werewolf best friend and a finally-perfected Animagus spell, either.
“Well?” Black demanded.
“I’ve a lot on my plate,” James finally settled for saying.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Black said, and his bloody perfect bloody eyebrow was edging upwards, of bloody course it was. “Being Head Boy’s a shockingly awful lot of responsibility, isn’t it.”
James ground his teeth. “You know, sometimes, I really just want to hex your stupid face off,” he said.
Naturally, instead of Black looking insulted or offended, his mouth curled up at the corners. “Yeah,” he said. “I understand it’s a common urge.”
James turned on his heel and stalked away.
#
The next time Sirius actually got to talk to Potter, it was because he ran into him in the Entrance Hall on the way out of lunch, a couple of weeks later. He even managed to make it look like an accident. He was totally proud of himself for that; he hadn’t even had a chance to practice.
Well, he’d tried, but Regulus had given him a horrified look like Sirius had suddenly turned into a thestral and flat-out refused, so Sirius hadn’t.
“Oi, watch where you’re—oh, Black.”
“Sorry,” Sirius lied. “Didn’t see you there, Potter.”
In the collision, Potter’s book bag had fallen, scattering books and parchment everywhere. A few chocolate frogs, too; Sirius summoned one of those, because he could, and slipped it into his pocket. It could be his excuse, if it got to the point he needed one.
Potter huffed. “Now why don’t I believe that?” he said, then sighed and knelt down to gather his scattered belongings. He could have just used magic, but this kept him in one place for Sirius to bother longer, so Sirius wasn’t going to be the one to point it out to him.
“What, you think I ran into you on purpose?” Sirius asked, putting on a frown. That was, of course, exactly what had happened. “Why would I do that?”
“I don’t pretend to know how your mind works,” Potter said, while Sirius’s mind was busy memorising what Potter looked like on his knees, as this was probably the only time Sirius would ever get to see it this close up. He licked his lips, and shifted his own book bag so it was more in front of him.
He didn’t offer to help Potter collect his things, but then, Potter didn’t ask him to, either.
After a second, Potter glanced up, and noticed Sirius still standing there. He frowned. “What is it, Black?”
“What is what?” Sirius said.
“Whatever reason you have for sticking around,” Potter said. “There must be one.”
Sirius gave him a smirk. “Maybe I like the view.”
Potter didn’t look convinced, but after rolling his eyes, he dropped his gaze back to his things.
When Potter was almost done, and the opportunity to speak to him almost over, Sirius cleared his throat. He cast his mind around for any safe subject, and asked the first thing he came up with. “So, going to have a good Christmas at home?”
Potter stopped, and looked up at him like Sirius had suddenly grown an extra head. “What did you just say?”
“It’s the last day of classes before break,” Sirius said, lightly. “That’s the sort of thing you talk about today, isn’t it?”
“Uh, I guess. But, anyway, no, I’m not going home.”
He said it so casually, like it wasn’t shocking news, that it took Sirius a moment to really parse it.
“What, you’re staying?” Sirius blurted, as Potter shoved the last roll of parchment into his bag and got to his feet. Potter stopped.
“Yes?” he said. “So?”
“You never stay.”
Potter looked at him even more oddly. Shit, had that come across as too interested, too revealing? Sirius thought maybe it had, but he couldn’t take it back now.
“Not before, no,” Potter agreed. “But Headmaster Dumbledore’s asked me to this time. He’s also asked Lily, and the Heads of House. Apparently, he’s not staying.”
“That part, I knew,” Sirius said.
“I think most of the school heard that part,” Potter said. “So, yeah, he’s leaving. I don’t actually know why.”
“Oh, that? I heard his husband wants to take him to the continent to celebrate the holiday.”
“Of course you did,” Potter muttered. His eyes darted away, and he dragged a hand through his hair.
“I hear things,” Sirius said. He waved a dismissive hand. “I didn’t hear that you were staying.”
“Really? Honestly, I’m surprised you hadn’t heard. It was decided a month ago,” Potter said. “I thought it had already made the rounds of the other Houses.”
Sirius gave him something sharp that wasn’t really a smile, with a lot of teeth. “Yeah, well, y’know. Not a lot of talk about shiny Gryffindor head students going on in the Slytherin Dungeon.”
For some reason, that made Potter look even more uncomfortable than he had at any point in the conversation yet.
“Right,” he said, awkwardly. “Well.”
“Better get back to your posse, Potter,” Sirius said. He pointed over Potter’s shoulder, toward the foot of the main staircase. Lupin and Evans were standing there, with a couple of other Gryffindors from their year. “They’re waiting for you.”
Potter turned to look. The corners of his mouth lifted in a smile. “Yeah,” he said.
“See you,” Sirius said, turning to head for his next class.
He was surprised to hear an answering, “See you, Black,” as he walked away.
Huh.
#
When James caught up to his friends, Lily had come up and was talking to Remus. Mary MacDonald was standing next to her, tapping her foot, and Peter was watching it, a fixed, glassy look in his eyes.
They all turned to James as he walked over.
“What was that about?” Remus asked, breaking off whatever he’d been saying to Lily.
“Hm? Was what?” James said, not really paying attention.
Lily gestured back over James’s shoulder. “Black. What’s up with him?”
“What, and I should know?” James asked, sharp to cover how much he wished he really did know.
“He just stood around watching you clean up after he knocked your possessions all over the entrance hall,” Mary said, suspiciously.
“And I’d swear he ran into you deliberately,” Lily added.
“Yeah,” Mary agreed. “Obviously, he wanted something.”
James shook his head, unexpectedly annoyed. What business was it of theirs, what Black wanted to talk to him about?
“Not really,” he said. And, on a stroke of inspiration, “Actually, I think he was just fishing.”
“Fishing? For what?” Remus asked, frowning like he was worried.
“I don’t know, information. He asked about Dumbledore leaving for the holiday,” James said.
Lily frowned. “Why would he want to know that?”
“Don’t ask why Black would want to know anything,” Mary said, shaking her head. “I mean, do you really want to know what goes on in his mind?”
Yes, was James’s first thought, immediate and emphatic. It didn’t make it out of his mouth, his throat gone suddenly tight with how much he wanted.
“Merlin, no,” Peter blurted, shaking his head.
“That’s a possibility better not considered, I think,” Remus said, dryly. “Now, unless everyone wants to be late to class, I suggest we…? Thank you.”
James still hadn’t found his voice as he followed his friends to their next lesson.
The thing was, it wasn’t new, him wanting to know what Black was like behind the mask. James had wondered on and off for years now. He might’ve felt bad about it, a little self-conscious, maybe, except—there were moments sometimes when Black would do or say something just right, and James would get this feeling, like maybe they weren’t so different as all that.
#
Half an hour before dinner, Sirius dropped into the chair across the library table from Regulus, loudly enough to earn him a sharp hiss from the librarian. Sirius ignored it.
Regulus didn’t look up.
“What do you want, Sirius?” he asked, head still bent over what looked like an Arithmancy essay.
“Can’t I just want to check on my little brother?” Sirius said, feigning affront.
“No,” Regulus said. “And even if you did want to, you’d do it in the common room while I’m with my yearmates.”
“I still think you’re dating one of them and are just afraid I’ll tell Mother,” Sirius accused. He was still trying to keep up the mock indignation, but he could tell it was cracking around the edges. Definitely not his best effort.
Hopefully still annoying, though.
Regulus heaved a huge sigh, and finally lifted his head to actually look at Sirius. “Really, are you going to tell me what you want, or am I supposed to guess?”
“You didn’t set your quill down when you asked that,” Sirius said.
“What?” Regulus glanced down at his essay, then back up. “So?”
“That means you don’t think this is going to take very long.”
“Is it?” Regulus asked.
“I don’t want to go home for Christmas,” Sirius said.
After a moment, Regulus put his quill back in his ink pot.
Sirius flashed a grin. “Told you.”
“They’re not going to like that,” Regulus said.
“That’s really not my problem. I want to stay, so I’m staying.”
“Uh huh. So why are you telling me, anyway?” Regulus asked. He stopped and held up a hand like a muggle pleaseman stopping traffic. “Wait.” He pointed a finger at Sirius. “Do you want something? You do, don’t you.”
“I’m going to ask Uncle Alphard to say I’m staying with him. I want you to go along,” Sirius said.
Regulus raised his eyebrows. “You want me to lie? To our parents?”
“Oh, calm down. It’s not like they’ll skin you if they catch you, or anything.”
“Fine, so you’re staying with Uncle Alphard. And what should I say if they ask why?”
“Tell them I’m thinking of getting a job with him at the ministry once I leave school, of course,” Sirius said.
Regulus looked startled. “What, are you, really?”
“No, of course not. I’m going to live as a Muggle for a year, you know that.”
“Right,” Regulus said, and sighed. “Not one of your better ideas, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t,” Sirius said.
“So what do I get out of it if I help you?”
“I’ll give you all my Transfiguration notes from fifth year,” Sirius offered.
“You don’t take notes,” Regulus said, contemptuously. “Try again.”
“I’ll get you something for Christmas.”
Regulus snorted. “Please. You’re doing that anyway.”
“What makes you think I’m—Fine.” Sirius thought a moment. “I’ll show you a way to sneak out of the castle and off the grounds.”
“What? Really?”
“Sure. We could go right now, if you want,” Sirius offered, and made to stand up.
Regulus lunged across the table and grabbed his wrist to keep him there. “Wait, you idiot,” he said. “I’m revising.”
“That’s a ‘no’, then?”
“Of course it’s a ‘no’,” Regulus said, impatiently. After a second, with a look around as if he were checking for eavesdroppers, “You can show me later.”
Sirius grinned.
Regulus returned it, for a beat. Then he let go of Sirius’s wrist, and sat back. Sirius made a show of rubbing at his skin where Regulus had been touching him—but he wasn’t really bothered, and he knew Regulus’d pick up on it. After all, Sirius hadn’t got up and left, had he?
“Must be something special about this Christmas,” Regulus said, a moment later, with obviously forced nonchalance. “That suddenly you want to stay at school, when you never have before.”
“Oh, I’ve wanted to plenty of times,” Sirius said.
“Well, that you’re actually going through with it, then,” Regulus corrected.
“You really want to know?”
“Would I have asked if I didn’t?”
“I ask things I don’t expect to be answered all the time,” Sirius said.
“Yes, well,” Regulus waved descriptively down at himself, “I am not you.”
“Yeah, yeah. So, the thing is, the headmaster’s going on holiday this Christmas,” Sirius explained.
“Wait, the headmaster’s leaving?”
Sirius nodded, completely unsurprised that Regulus wouldn’t’ve picked up on that by now. Sirius had known for weeks, but Regulus tended to get annoyed when Sirius showed up to fill him in about the castle goings-on too often, and there wasn’t really anyone else who’d bother to keep Regulus up on these things.
“Why’s he leaving?”
Sirius rolled his eyes. “I told you, to go on holiday with his husband.”
“In the middle of the school year?” Regulus asked, looking sceptical.
“I heard a rumour they haven’t had a proper holiday since they took down whatshisname,” Sirius said.
Regulus frowned. “Who?”
“Come on, Reg, you know who I mean, that wannabe dark lord ages ago,” Sirius said, exasperated. “They defeated him together and went off for months, people thought they were never coming back? Named Timmy Pun, or something.”
“Why do you even know these things?” Regulus said.
“I know lots of things.”
“Right. And why would the Headmaster leaving mean you want to stay?”
Sirius licked his lips and considered whether to answer or not.
Regulus narrowed his eyes. “Are you planning to blow something up?”
“No!”
“Then what—”
“He’s asked the Head Boy and Girl to stay,” Sirius blurted.
Regulus stared blankly for a moment, then his eyes widened. “You want to stay because of Potter.”
Sirius could have tried to deny it, but what would be the point? This was Regulus.
“And so what if I do?” Sirius asked, slouching a little more, insolent, and just daring Regulus to make something of it.
“Nothing,” Regulus said, very definitely not taking him up on it, because he wasn’t Sirius, and could resist that kind of thing. Then, because he was Sirius’s brother, and therefore at least a little bit of a smug wisearse, “Just, I really don’t understand why you don’t just tell him you fancy him. Or jump him, or something.”
Sirius curled his lip, and shook his head. “What, now I’m getting advice from someone who thinks dating in secret is a good idea?”
“I’m not dating anyone in secret,” Regulus snapped. “I’m not dating anyone at all.”
“Sure you aren’t.”
“I’m not. I haven’t time to,” Regulus said. He glared. “I’ve OWLs this year, in case you forgot.”
“What does that matter?”
“Not all of us can sleep through our lessons and still be at the top of the class without ever revising,” Regulus said.
“I don’t sleep through them,” Sirius said. “Not all of them. And anyway, I’m not top of the class.”
“You’re close.”
“What, you jealous, little brother?”
Regulus visibly gritted his teeth. After a moment, he said, “So, you’re staying. Are you going to make a move on Potter, then?”
“No.”
Regulus frowned. “Then what’s the point of staying because he’s staying?”
Sirius opened his mouth to give a flip answer, but found himself stopping, giving Regulus a considering look instead. Regulus raised his eyebrows, and waited.
“I just want to see if I can spend more time with him. Get to know him,” Sirius found himself admitting.
After a pause, Regulus cleared his throat, and said, “I’d say that sounded remarkably reasonable of you, but—”
Sirius groaned. “Of course there’s a bloody ‘but’.”
“This is you, so I’m sorry, but I don’t get it,” Regulus finished.
“Don’t get what?”
“Why won’t you just make a move?” Regulus asked, and he looked confused and annoyed. Like Sirius was victimising him, by not throwing himself at the most popular kid in school and getting rejected.
“What, that needs an explanation?” Sirius said, disbelieving.
Regulus scowled. “Considering how long it’s been, and that I know you’re not a coward, yes.”
Sirius huffed. “Reg, c’mon.”
“Sirius, c’mon,” Regulus mimicked. He folded his arms over the edge of the table. “What is it, really?”
“If you must know—”
“Apparently I must,” Regulus said, voice almost a mutter, but still pitched so Sirius could pick it up. “Because I’m an idiot.”
“Potter’s never shown any sign of being interested in gents.”
“So what? As far as anyone else knows, you’ve never shown any sign of being interested in anyone.”
“Not my fault people aren’t as observant as I am.”
“Right, so because Potter’s blind, instead of talking to him like a sane person would,” Regulus said, “you’re just gonna stay and haunt him over break. Probably corner him accidentally a few times, talk to him until your intense staring makes him nervous, et cetera. That about the size of it?”
“I object to your word choice. But, basically, yes,” Sirius said, unrepentantly.
“Well, that’ll be a nice Christmas gift for him,” Regulus muttered. “Finding out you’re stalking him, and all.”
“Hmm.” Sirius tipped his chair on to the back two legs, and started to smirk, a delightful idea taking shape in his mind. “You’re a genius, Reg.”
Heaving a huge sigh, Regulus turned back to his essay.
#
Sirius followed Professor Slughorn back to his office after dinner and slid into the room before the door could swing closed behind him.
“Excuse me, Professor Slughorn?”
Professor Slughorn jumped, and whirled toward the sound of Sirius’s voice. He looked relieved, to see only Sirius, and after quite a few seconds to catch his breath, he said, “Ah, Sirius Black, my boy. What can I do for you?”
“I was just wondering, sir, if it’s too late to sign up to stay over the holiday break,” Sirius said, and gave the Professor his best hopeful, earnest expression.
“Oh,” Professor Slughorn said, and gave Sirius—a knowing look? “Of course you’ll be wanting to stay.”
Sirius felt his expression freeze. There was no way Professor Slughorn could know the real reason he was staying, the only person he’d told even part of it to was Regulus, he wouldn’t tell, and there’d been no-one around to overhear—so what in Godric’s blasted name did Professor Slughorn think he knew that would of course explain Sirius wanting to stay?
“Yes,” he said, wary and trying not to show it. “I do.”
“Regulus already came to me and put his name down to stay,” Professor Slughorn was saying, with an indulgent grin. He shuffled through the things on his desk, apparently looking for the sign-up parchment. “I should have known you’d be staying as well—such a thoughtful, caring older brother, like yourself.”
Sirius allowed himself a long, slow blink, so that he didn’t roll his eyes at a teacher he was actively asking a favour. “Right,” he said, through the teeth of an insincere smile. “That’s it exactly.”
What the bloody hell. Reg hadn’t said anything about staying.
“Ah, well, it’s a bit tight, you know, but I don’t think letting you stay should be a problem,” Professor Slughorn said. “You’ll still have to sign, of course.”
“Yeah, no, of course,” Sirius agreed, reaching for the quill and parchment as soon as the were produced and offered to him.
He signed his name below Reg’s, underneath Professor Slughorn’s indulgent, beaming smile.
#
Bam.
For the second time in a single day, James found himself knocked into at speed by—Black, again? Really?
“Is this like a new sport I don’t know about?” James asked, suppressing a groan at the state of his ribs. Really, he’d had worse than this off a Quidditch game. Just, in Quidditch, he expected it; in the corridors, less so. And Black’s elbows were pointy. “‘Potter bowling’, or something?”
“Honestly, I didn’t see you,” Black said, impatiently. There was an unusual, pinched quality about his face, but he offered James a hand up, anyway, which was—surprising.
After a moment’s hesitation, James accepted it. Black’s hand was long-fingered and slim, but strong, and his grip firm. His skin was smooth, and just a little dry, and warm. Unexpectedly warm. His touch lingered, even after James was on his feet and couldn’t possibly have needed Black’s help anymore.
“Yeah, and even if I’d believed that the first time, with this one added in, I’m beginning to think you’re the one who needs glasses,” James said. He hoped it covered the noise he’d made when Black’s fingertips had dragged across the back of his hand as Black had let go.
“Or maybe you just need to stand out more,” said Black.
There was a long pause. James raised his eyebrows.
“Yeah, I don’t buy it, either,” Black agreed, with an elaborate wince. “Rubbish excuse, forget I said it.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve already started to,” James lied.
Black tipped his head in acknowledgement, hair falling in a graceful sweep half over his eyes. “I’m relieved to hear it,” he said, and he was so impossibly goddamn pretty. James just honestly could not tell which he wanted to do more, smack him, or kiss him all over.
“And on that note,” James said, hastily, before he could give in and do either, “I think I’ll be going.”
Black nodded. “Oh, sure. Right.”
James tried to step away—and found he couldn’t. There was an invisible force holding him in place. He stared at Black, who stared back.
A horrible suspicion growing in the pit of his stomach, James slowly tipped his head back and looked up.
Just as he’d feared, there was a little ball of greenery floating above their heads, little tuft of silver tinsel twinkling merrily in the torchlight. Mistletoe.
That was mistletoe, James had been caught by the bloody magical mistletoe everyone had been trying desperately either to avoid or be trapped under for the last week. He should’ve known his luck at avoiding it so far was too good to last.
Because now he was stuck here under it, with Black. The absolute worst, most humiliating possible person. The only person in the castle James wanted to kiss, and the last person who was likely to actually want James to kiss them. Fuck. James’s heart tripped over, and his lungs felt like they were squeezing in on themselves. His skin prickled, like he was about to break out in a sweat.
Shit.
“Well,” Black drawled. “This is a new one.”
James shot him a glare. “You’re amused by this?” he asked, hoping Black couldn’t see the flush starting to build on the back of his neck and the tips of his ears. At least it wouldn’t show on his face.
“Aren’t you?” Black said, with that half-smile that made James feel like the world was off-kilter even when he wasn’t trapped with it by malicious magical mistletoe, with kissing that quirked-up mouth the only easy way out.
“No,” James said, honestly, “amused is one thing I’m definitely not.”
“And you’re supposed to be the one of us with a sense of humour.”
“I have a sense of humour!”
Black smirked. “Sure doesn’t seem like it right now.”
“Look, do you want to kiss me?” James demanded.
Black’s smirk disappeared like it had never existed. “What?”
“Because unless you’ve got a better idea, that’s what needs to happen for us to get free of—this blasted plant.”
Black’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Even as stomach-squirmy as the situation made James feel, it was almost worth it, to see Black at a loss for words.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” James said. He dropped his book bag, and propped one hand on his hip while he tugged at his hair with the other. Shit, this was bad, it was really, really—
“I’m not diseased,” Black said.
James froze.
“I beg your pardon?” he asked, voice a little harsh.
Black’s expression was hard, tense—but behind that, his eyes were—there was something about the light in them—“Y’do know if you kiss me, you’re not gonna catch anything, right?” Black was saying.
“That wasn’t—I don’t think—“
“Oh, for Merlin’s sake,” Black groaned, and the next thing James knew, he was taking that last step in close, leaning in, and, and.
Cool, firm lips brushed James’s cheek, just barely catching the corner of his mouth.
James made a noise not unlike the one he’d made the last time a Bludger caught him square in the gut.
Black pulled away, and took a step back. It was a good thing none of those firsties who were already afraid of him were around to see him, because he had a face on like he wanted to murder somebody.
“That,” James said, quite stupidly. “You.”
Black took another step back, and then another two when the mistletoe didn’t stop him. “There you go, sir,” he said, coolly. “All free. No harm done.”
He didn’t wait for a response.
“Yes,” James agreed. But he was speaking to empty air.
No harm done at all.
#
Sirius got back to Slytherin Dungeon, and immediately scanned the common room for Regulus—ah, there he was, in one of the wingback chairs in the most isolated corner. Sirius narrowed his eyes, and went over.
“You’re staying.”
“You’re obvious,” Regulus countered. He lowered the book he was reading, though, so he must have had some idea what Sirius was getting at.
Crossing his arms, Sirius threw himself down into the chair across from Regulus. “I thought we discussed this.”
“We discussed you staying,” Regulus said.
“Yeah,” said Sirius, and maybe he was still a little grumpy about Potter’s reaction to the mistletoe, and maybe he was taking it out on Regulus, but nobody had to know that, “and how you were going to go home and tell mum and dad where I wasn’t gonna be and why.”
Regulus nodded, looking unmoved. “Yes, but then I thought about it.”
“Oh, yeah? And what did you think about it?”
“That, one, I would feel like a terrible brother if I left you here alone to make questionable choices—” Regulus started.
“I’d make just the same ones whether you were here on not,” Sirius said. Regulus ignored him.
“—And two, I have absolutely no interest in facing our parents by myself, especially not to lie to their faces.”
Sirius considered him. Regulus stared back, unmoved.
“I’m having trouble arguing with that, since I wouldn’t either,” Sirius said.
“See, exactly,” Regulus said. He looked down at his book—but then up again.
“You want to play Exploding Snap?” he asked.
Sirius let himself grin, a little, his bad temper starting to wash away at the edges, and pulled out his wand to summon his deck.
#
The day after the train left with the smaller-than-usual group of students not staying for the holiday, James was walking back up to the castle and saw for just a second a tiny, out of place glow, small and bright like the lit end of a Muggle cigarette. He was on his way in from some solo night flying on the Quidditch pitch, just to keep his hand in—and because his badge meant he could without getting in trouble—when he caught the little flare of orange light from the corner of his eye, in the shadows at the base of one of the castle walls.
That little glow was the first sign of other people he’d seen in hours. It still had no right to get his heart pounding like it was, make his breath catch like that.
It could be anyone—out late—smoking a Muggle cig, or doing something that looked a lot like that. It could be a Hufflepuff, one or other of them was always getting caught smoking something. It could be any old fifth or sixth year, looking for a thrill.
It could be Black.
James found his feet taking him in that direction, while his brain was still thinking of possibilities.
Once he was in under the shadow of the castle, and his eyes had adjusted, James picked out the silhouette of the smoker. Tall, draped comfortably against the wall, the lower half of a pale face visible, and the glint of moonlight off dark hair.
“Well, you’re out very late,” James called.
“So are you,” replied a voice James recognised well, confirming his suspicions. There was a short, slightly mocking laugh. “Mr Head Boy, sir.”
James sped up, just a little, and moved in closer. He was still trying to decide what to say next, when—
“You’re not gonna try to get me in trouble with the Heads, are you?” Black said, as James finally got near enough to actually make out his face in the dark. One step more, and the air warmed noticeably. “You’re out a bit late, yourself.”
“I’ve got permission to be out this late. You don’t. And you’re smoking,” James replied.
Black snorted. “Yeah, I don’t think this is actually against the rules.”
“Do you even know what the rules are?” James asked, startled into curiosity. All right, more, specific curiosity than normal.
“Harder to break ‘em if you don’t know ‘em,” Black said, which was no kind of answer. It didn’t tell James anything, damn it.
“Black,” he said, and forced himself to inject a note of warning into it. Authority, firmness—be in charge, James.
Black tipped his head back to rest against the wall, watching James through lidded eyes and those long, dark lashes. There were snowflakes clumped in them. He took a long drag off his cig, let it eke out slow through his nostrils and barely-open mouth.
You look like a dragon, James thought, and had to bite his own lip to keep himself from saying it.
“Should I say ‘sorry’, Mr Potter,” Black asked, languid and infuriatingly calm. Arch, almost. “Would that make you happy?”
Oh, hell.
“It would make me happy if you gave me one of those,” James heard his own voice saying. That was his hand, reaching out, too, palm up expectantly.
Black’s head came off the wall, and his eyes opened properly. “What, are you serious?”
“No, you are,” James said, deciding to go with it, because a surprised Black was a terrible thing to waste. “Stop asking daft questions and give a bloke a smoke.”
“You—you really want one?”
In answer, James crooked his fingers a few times in a gimme gesture.
“Well, fuck me,” Black breathed. James choked on the air in his lungs, but fortunately Black didn’t seem to notice, too busy tapping one loose from the pack.
James didn’t dare attempt an answer, just accepted the cig and lit it on the end of his wand. Black watched him, eyes assessing; he made a low, thoughtful noise that James deliberately didn’t think to hard about.
“Where do you even get Muggle smokes, anyway?” James asked, after a minute with nothing but the sounds of the night around them.
“I’ll tell you where I get mine if you tell me where you get yours,” Black said, with one of those little smiles of his, the ones that made James hate how much of a blusher he was, and at the same time wish Black would never stop because damn.
“What?” James’s hand wanted to clench around the cig he was holding, crumple it, but that would have ruined it; he curled his other hand into a fist instead, shoved in his pocket where Black couldn’t see it.
Black arched a brow, and glanced pointedly at James’s cig. James looked down, too, immediately hyperaware of the casual, familiar way he’d automatically slotted it between his fingers. “Dunno what you’re talking about,” he said, anyway.
Black snorted. “Sure,” he said, and took another drag. “What, was it your girlfriend?”
James frowned. “Pardon?”
“You know. Evans? Head Girl?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” James said.
Both of Black’s eyebrows were up, now, and he scoffed. “The two of you sticking your tongues down each other’s throats at the Welcoming Feast would beg to differ.”
“Yeah, fine, all right, but she isn’t my girlfriend anymore.”
Black’s expression froze, brows still half-raised, as his eyes went sharp and glinting. James fought to keep his own expression neutral.
“Oh, really,” Black said, his voice low.
“Yes. Not that it’s any of your business,” James added, pointedly.
“It certainly isn’t,” Black agreed, tapping ash off the end of his cig. “But you still haven’t told me if she’s where you get your fags.”
“She isn’t,” James said, before he realised he meant to.
“Where do you, then?” Black asked.
“Somewhere else,” James said. He closed his mouth on the explanation of Will, a summer full of sneaking cigs and smoke flavoured kisses when he was fifteen; that probably wasn’t what Black wanted to hear. “And not anymore, anyway.”
“No?”
James took a long drag, sucking the ash almost down to the filter, and blew all the smoke right at Black’s face. “This is the first smoke I’ve had in over a year.”
Black’s little grin was visible even through the haze.
“Well,” he said, voice all low and smokey like the air between them. “You’re welcome, then.”
“You’re welcome yourself,” James muttered, feeling a little overheated for no good reason. It was cold out here, the tips of his ears were going numb—he hadn’t been able to feel his nose since before he’d spotted Black—there was no reason to be feeling all flushed and warm.
“I ought to thank you, really,” Black said.
“Oh, yeah? What for?”
“It isn’t every day I get told something I don’t know.”
“You are at a school, you know,” James felt compelled to point out.
“Yeah? And I suppose you’re about to tell me that you’ve never come out of a class not knowing a thing more than when you walked into it?” Black asked.
James opened his mouth, stopped, closed it, and snickered. “Well,” he said, “if I did, it’d be a lie.”
“Figured,” Black said. Then he lapsed into silence.
James let him, just stood there and smoked, and let himself drink Black in. Shadows and half-light was a good look on him—then again, with a face like that, probably any light was a good look on him.
I’d love to see a sunrise paint that face.
As soon as the thought registered, James’s lungs seized up, and his throat went dry.
Black’s mental train of thought must’ve been going along some other, entirely different track, because abruptly, while James was still trying to catch his breath, Black said, “You know, the Hat laughed when it sorted you.”
“It did?” James blurted, a little startled, because he, he really had no idea why Black had been thinking of that.
“Yeah, didn’t you realise?” Black said.
“Well, I mean, yeah, but I thought—out loud, and everything?” James asked.
Black half-grinned. “Out loud and everything.”
“Huh,” said James. “It didn’t laugh, with you.”
“Well, it wouldn’t have, would it.”
“It took a long time, actually,” James added.
“I know.” Black flicked his cig to the ground and crushed it under the heel of his clunky black boot. “I was there, remember?”
They were silent for a few moments. James cleared his throat, and offered, “I would’ve thought you’d be a quick sort.”
Black scoffed, and started patting around at his cloak like he couldn’t remember where he’d put his packet of cigs, which was ridiculous. “Oh, yeah? Think I’m that much of a Slytherin?” he said, his voice gone cool.
“No.”
Black stilled. After a long pause, while James held his breath and wondered if he’d made a mistake admitting that, Black looked up, his grey eyes wide and bright with some feeling James couldn’t place.
“If you want to know, it took so long because I was convincing it,” Black said.
James’s mouth felt suddenly parched. He licked his lips before he spoke. “Convincing it? Of what?”
“Not to put me in Gryffindor.”
“What?” James blurted. He felt like someone had hit him square in the face with a bludgeoning spell. He could’ve had Black as a house mate—a dorm mate, maybe even a friend—all these years?
Black’s teeth flashed in the dark as his mouth stretched in a grin, but it didn’t look very mirthful. “Yeah,” he said. “Weren’t expecting that, were you?”
“But why would you,” James said, and barely kept himself from tacking on anything ridiculous about Black withholding his friendship or attention or whatever from James. He was asking about a lot more than anything that superficial, anyway.
Slytherin’s reputation wasn’t as bad as it had been just after the Dark Lord Riddle had been defeated, a decade or two ago, but it still wasn’t good. Being sorted there was one thing, but asking to be put there—going so far as talking the Sorting Hat into it—just boggled James’s mind.
“Because I’m a Black, idiot,” Black snapped, and even the humourless grin was gone from his face. He looked genuinely annoyed, which James had never seen before, ever; not even the time Mary MacDonald had accidentally-on-purpose spilled an entire cauldron of Vanishing Draught on his robes. “A Black on both sides, even.”
“What does that have—”
“My entire family have been in Slytherin for more than five generations,” Black said, relentlessly, the most intense James had ever heard him. “My great-great-grandfather was Head of Slytherin, before he was Headmaster. We don’t get sorted into Slytherin, we are Slytherins.”
“But the Hat wanted to put you in Gryffindor,” James heard himself saying, stupidly.
“The Hat wanted to break a hundred-and-fifty-year tradition. All I did was convinced it not to.”
“Oh,” James said—and then it dawned on him, perhaps a little too late, what Black had just done. “Wait, you—why did you just tell me that?”
There was a very long pause.
“Why? Should I not have?” Black asked. It wasn’t a threat, of course, and James hadn’t really expected it to be, though the rest of the school might’ve; it was simple curiosity.
“Well, no, I’m just, uh.” James stopped, and cleared his throat. “Black, you don’t usually—talk. To people.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t,” Black said, with a shrug like a dog shaking itself off as he pushed himself away from the castle wall. “When I want to.”
James gaped at him, and Black just stared back, half-smiling. His eyes were doing that gleaming thing again.
“Right,” James said, because it felt like he should be saying something. He tossed the butt of his cig down to join the little collection of them at Black’s feet. “Well. I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to be inside right now.”
“Probably,” Black said. He didn’t move.
James cleared his throat, and took two steps backwards toward the door. “All right, then. Good night, Black.”
“Night, Potter.”
When he still couldn’t think of anything else to say several heartbeats later, mind all taken up with the planes of Black’s face in the faint moonlight, James gave up and went back inside.
#
Three days before Christmas, Sirius camped himself at the foot of some stairs several corridors away from Gryffindor Tower, on the most likely route up from the entrance hall, where he could lurk to catch Potter without losing plausible deniability. These things took careful thought.
At a quarter past eleven, Potter rounded the corner and came to a sudden halt when he spotted Sirius.
Sirius didn’t bother straightening up off the wall. He lifted an arm and gave a lazy wave.
Potter stood still for a moment longer. Then he positively stalked the rest of the way down the corridor to Sirius.
“It is late, Black,” he said, stopping about a meter away, and giving Sirius a comically insincere look of disapproval.
“Yes, it is,” Sirius agreed, brightly. “And how does this fine evening find you?”
“Tired,” Potter said. He dragged a hand through his already windswept hair, where there were still a few unmelted flakes of snow, which called Sirius’s attention to how red his ears and nose were. He must’ve been out flying again, then—honestly, who had made this kid Head Boy? It was a wonder he ever had his feet on solid ground long enough to perform a single prefectly duty.
Well, between the after hours time on his broom, and that other way he spent his time at night.
“What about your friend, Lupin?” Sirius asked, apropos of nothing Potter would’ve caught, unless he was a secret Legilimens, as well.
Potter frowned slightly. “What about him?”
“Well, how’s he tonight? I mean, he is still here too, right?”
“What’s it to you?” Potter asked, and he looked suddenly wary. Well, at least he wasn’t dumb.
“I was just wondering,” Sirius said. He shot Potter a sideways, assessing look, then casually added, “Since there’s a full moon over break, and all.”
Potter went absolutely still. “What does that matter?”
“You’ve been spending them with him, haven’t you?” Sirius asked.
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Potter said, voice like ice.
“Come on, Potter, don’t play dumb, it doesn’t suit you. Lupin’s a werewolf.”
There was a moment of stillness. Then suddenly Potter had Sirius pressed up against the wall with an arm across his chest, wand out and pointed at the underside of Sirius’s chin. Sirius had his own wand out, but he didn’t bother raising it to point at Potter’s side, just let his arm dangle loose.
“If you make trouble—”
“Relax,” Sirius said. “I’m not going to tell anyone. I’ve known for years.”
Potter did not relax. In fact, he went even tenser, muscles firming into a wall against Sirius’s front as well. Sirius didn’t bother to pretend not to enjoy the sensation, arching into it a little, and grinning at the tight, bemused expression on Potter’s face.
“Why bring it up now?” Potter demanded, scowling.
“Because you started being gone for full moons, too.”
“So what?”
“I think you’re spending them with him, and I want to know how,” Sirius said, and grinned full-out at the startled look that brought to Potter’s face.
Looking thrown, Potter took a half-step back, his wand still pressed under Sirius’s chin. “What? You—Are you serious?”
“Yes,” Sirius said, brightly. “Look, it’s obviously not a potion, you’re not much of a brewer.”
Potter pulled a face, but it was almost as rueful as it was offended, so Sirius figured he was right on that count.
“Probably not a protection charm, they’re really not your strong suit,” Sirius went on.
“Oi!”
“Come on, you’re best at offensive spells and you know it.”
Potter opened his mouth to argue, then closed it and frowned instead. After a moment, he muttered, “Yeah, but how do you?”
“I pay attention.” Sirius tilted his head, and gave Potter a thorough, lingering once-over. “So, anyway, my bet’s Animagus.”
Potter flushed.
Gotcha.
Sirius smirked. “So,” he said, relaxing completely against the wall now. “What are you? A lion?”
“A lion,” Potter said, sputtering. His wand arm dropped, the other still across Sirius’s chest. “Why in Merlin’s name would you think I’d be a bloody lion?”
“Wait, you’re really not?”
“Of course I’m not!” Potter snapped.
“Oh,” Sirius said, honestly disappointed. “I’d sort of been assuming.”
Potter glared. “What, and you’d be a snake then?”
“I’m not an Animagus yet,” Sirius pointed out.
“Well then you have no—What do you mean, yet?”
Sirius smirked some more, mostly to see what Potter would do.
What Potter did was press in close again.
“What’s your game, Black?” he demanded, low.
“If you can do it, I can do it.”
“Oh, yeah? Prove it, Sirius.”
“Anything you like, James.”
Potter glared. He opened his mouth to say something, but didn’t.
“C’mon,” Sirius taunted, watching Potter’s cheeks starting to flush, and feeling a thrill knowing he’d caused that. “Name something you’d do that I wouldn’t.”
“I’ve—” Potter started.
Sirius let his mouth form his softest smirk, the one he usually only let Regulus see. “Yeah? What is it?”
Potter licked his lips, gaze darting down from Sirius’s eyes, then back up. Then down again—and Sirius’s breath caught. Was Potter thinking about—Sirius really thought he might—was James actually going to kiss him?
All of a sudden, James was backing away.
Sirius could’ve hexed something.
“How about,” James said, weirdly stiff, and not looking right at Sirius anymore, “You go back to your house and stay out of trouble, for once?”
And, well, what choice did Sirius have? It was a dare.
Sirius sulked back to the Dungeon.
#
This was probably a bad idea. James was very aware that this was a bad idea.
He’d tracked down the person he wanted to talk to, though, and he was doing it anyway.
“Mr Black.”
At his name, Black the Younger looked up, and his eyes narrowed when he got a look at James. “Oh,” he said, his mouth pinched together a little. “It’s you.”
James tried a smile. “You know, that is by far the least enthusiastic greeting I’ve ever got from a Black. I mean, that wasn’t a hex.”
Black the Younger snorted. “Yeah, I’ll bet,” he muttered.
“Right,” James said, and he kept the smile on his face through pure stubbornness. “Awfully close to Christmas for you to be in the library, Mr Black.”
“Yes, well, unlike you or my brother, I do actually have to revise occasionally.”
“Even though you don’t have any classes until after the start of the new year?” James asked, sceptical. That was even more studious dedication than Remus displayed the week after a full moon, when he was trying to catch up.
Black the Younger actually slammed his book closed, flushing slightly. “You are absolutely,” he said, folding his hands on top of the book, and clenching them until the knuckles went white, “as bad as Sirius is.”
James pushed his glasses up his nose, and let his hand keep right on going up into his hair. “Listen, I actually wanted to ask, your brother—”
“Oh, Merlin, not you too,” Black the Younger said, groaning.
“What?” James asked, taken aback.
“Nothing. What about Sirius?”
“I was just wondering,” James said, and stopped, appalled to discover that all the words he’d practiced had flown out of his head like a dropped Quaffle. “Uh.”
“Yes? Wondering what, Potter?”
James cleared his throat. “Your brother!”
“Sirius, yes,” Black the Younger said, frowning heavily. “What about him?”
“He, uh. That is, he—er.”
“Did he blow something up,” Black the Younger demanded. He looked suddenly suspicious, frown shifting to an outright scowl.
“No!” James ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I just wanted to know, does he, well, is Sirius—interested in people?”
Black the Younger’s face cleared. He groaned again, but without prompting answered, “Interested? As a general rule: No.”
“Oh,” James said, heart sinking.
“He finds people dull and annoying,” Black the Younger was going on. “For the most part, not worth the effort.”
“Right,” James forced himself to say, hoping he didn’t sound quite as stiff as he felt. “Well, thanks for—that.”
James must not have been doing as good a job acting unaffected as he would’ve liked, though, because Black the Younger regarded him for several seconds, and then rolled his eyes.
“You, on the other hand, apparently don’t count as ‘people’,” Black the Younger said, dryly. “So, congratulations.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” James blustered, but his heart was pounding, and his stomach was levitating back up to where it ought to be, along with a couple dozen dancing hippogriffs.
“It means relax, Mr Popularity, he’s just as fascinated as you are,” Black the Younger said.
“So that’s why he—knows things,” James said.
“You mean why he’s been stalking you? Yes.”
“Stalking, really?”
Black the Younger gave him a flat look. “Yes.”
Flushing, James cleared his throat. “Well, that’s. Something.”
“The fastest way to get his attention is to say your name,” Black the Younger added, with something like relish.
“That sounds implausible,” James said.
“And yet.”
That was—Well, probably, properly, it should be alarming, but this was Sirius Black. James would be shocked to discover that the boy knew a socially acceptable way to do anything. Besides, interest was interest, and James was really glad to hear that Sirius was interested, too—coming from his little brother, no less! Was there a better source of insider information?
Most likely not, unless James wanted to start sneaking into Slytherin Dungeon to do some spying for himself. Which he didn’t, and couldn’t’ve even if he had, because he’d left the invisibility cloak at home to avoid temptation, like an idiot.
Still. Best to check, right? “You’re sure you’re not having me on?” James asked, in his best suspicious voice.
“Why would I waste the time? Really, your ego is astounding.”
With that, Black the Younger opened his book back up, and lifted it to hide his face, and—actually, that was a novel, not a school book.
James pointed accusingly, and yelped, “You weren’t revising at all!”
“With respect, Mr Head Boy,” Black the Younger said, from behind his book, “go away.”
#
People were determined to ruin Sirius’s plans, today. First Regulus, and now James.
Sirius had been trying to pull off an air of general indifference in the common room, but Regulus kept looking over at him and snickering his annoying head off, like he knew a good joke that Sirius hadn’t been the one to tell him. There was only so much of that even the saintliest elder brother could be expected to take.
So he’d been coming outside to his usual smoking spot, only James was already there.
Sirius couldn’t decide whether to be pleased or irritated. On the one hand, it was James, looking as though he’d been waiting for Sirius. On the other, it was the middle of the day, and even a no-account Head Boy might object to Sirius having the nice relaxing smoke he’d been after, in full view of everything.
At least there was no mistletoe out here. And no more secrets Sirius felt like spilling—at the moment, anyway.
There was only so horribly this could go.
“James,” Sirius said, walking up with a pace carefully matched to his usual confident stroll. “Fancy seeing you here.”
James, oddly, looked relieved. “Yes,” he said. “I’d hoped to.”
Sirius blinked. “Oh.”
Thrown, he didn’t reach into his pocket for his smokes. James didn’t offer anything else. It probably wouldn’t’ve been weird, he and James had crossed paths without talking loads of times before. Except the last time Sirius’d seen him, James’d been looking at Sirius’s mouth like he wanted, and now Sirius found he couldn’t look at a silent James without feeling itchy and half-alarmed.
“So,” Sirius said, after a couple of minutes. He hadn’t cast a warming charm, so his fingers were starting to go a bit numb, and he didn’t even have a fresh hit of nicotine to show for it. “What brought you out in the snow the day before Christmas Eve?”
“I was waiting for you,” James said.
“Sure you were. Why?”
“Because,” James said, which was at least better than silence, but was nothing that would’ve counted as an explanation.
Sirius waited. He even raised one eyebrow, extremely slowly and pointedly. James didn’t take the hint, just stood there holding his own hands, and still didn’t explain himself.
This was ridiculous. The last time Sirius had seen James, he’d almost kissed Sirius—he had clearly been about to, or at least thinking really hard along those lines—only to chicken out or think better of it or whatever it was that had stopped him. And now here he was, standing around invading Sirius’s sanctuary, with nothing to say for himself? It was unacceptable.
All right, then.
James had it coming.
Sirius grabbed that Merlin-damned crimson and gold scarf, wrapped it around his fist, and tugged James into a hard kiss. James’s mouth was warm, his lips a little chapped, and they parted under his in surprise. James didn’t kiss back, though.
Sirius was just starting to regret giving in to the impulse, and wondering how he could play this off—when James abruptly wrapped his arms around Sirius and tugged him closer.
Sirius grinned into the kiss.
“Shut up,” James muttered, still trying to kiss Sirius even while he talked.
“I didn’t say a thing.”
“Just shut up. And get back here.”
Sirius considered pointing out that he hadn’t gone anywhere, it was James who had pulled his head back, but decided that he could make much better use of his mouth.
And he did, for long minutes that melted into each other, their lips sliding and pushing against each other warm and slick and delicious. At some point, James slipped a leg between Sirius’s thighs, hitching their hips up close and tight. It was all breath-stealingly, shiveringly good.
Then James started rocking his hips, actually rubbing his erection against Sirius through their robes instead of just twitching more snugly up against him every now and then, and some small, deep-down part of Sirius panicked.
He hadn’t been expecting even the kissing when he walked out here, much less anything more. He’d never even done anything like this. He wasn’t ready.
It was so good, pleasure zinging deliciously up his spine with every roll of James’s hips, but—he couldn’t.
Sirius pushed them apart, just before he would’ve lost the will to do it, and took a step back.
“Huh, whazit, Sirius?” James asked, handily displaying all that fine intelligence that had him at the top of their class.
“Stopping, now,” Sirius said.
James’s face fell so much so quickly, it was almost touching. “Oh.”
“We could meet again tomorrow,” Sirius said. “If you want.”
James’s flushed face perked back up and broke into a grin.
#
Barely an hour after the Christmas Eve feast—Merlin, there were so many feasts this year, the one today and another one tomorrow, was this normal?—James spotted Sirius coming down the corridor in a mostly un-used part of the castle, and legitimately had to resist the urge to tackle him. His stomach was a hot knot of excitement, like before a Quidditch game only worse, his throat tight. The skin of his palms was crawling and itching with the desire to touch—he wanted to push Sirius flat and touch him all over—
He double-timed it down to meet Sirius, instead.
“Hey,” James said.
“Hey, you,” Sirius replied, stopping an arm’s length away.
There was an awkward moment, where neither of them moved forward, like they were both expecting the other to do the advancing—which was ridiculous, the very idea that the notorious Sirius Black would let someone else take the lead was enough to make James have to fight the urge to laugh.
Sirius broke the tension by rolling his eyes, reaching for James’s face with both hands. Cradling James’s cheeks in his palms, he leaned in and brushed their mouths together. Immediately, James went loose and easy.
Taking advantage, Sirius backed him against the wall and pressed in close.
This, yes, this was exactly what James had wanted.
Sirius took another half step closer, invading James’s space, and just like that James’s focus narrowed down to the hard line of Sirius pressed to his front, the almost-too-tight grip of Sirius’s hands on his hips, the slow, dull suck of Sirius’s mouth on his neck.
Every part of James felt too warm, but the bit of him between his stomach and thighs, where he and Sirius collided, was lighting up like a Christmas tree on fire.
James was all the way hard, and while the pressure of Sirius touching him was nice, he was so desperate for some friction that he felt dizzy with it. Mindful of the way Sirius had reacted yesterday when he’d tried the same thing, James started rocking his hips.
Instead of pushing him away again, though, this time Sirius let out a little gasp that James felt more than heard—tiny hot gust of breath over the skin of his neck—and started grinding right back.
“Oh, Merlin.”
Sirius moved a hand off James’s hip and up to the back of James’s head. He got a grip on James’s hair and tugged, pulling James’s head back, accidentally knocking it against the wall a bit.
“Sorry,” Sirius mumbled, but James didn’t get a chance to tell him not to worry about it, because then they were kissing again, a little uncoordinated from the angle and the way their hips were still moving against each other.
It was half just panting wetly into each others’ mouths, but—It was the hottest James had ever been, with nothing but their lips skin-to-skin. For all she’d been amazing, kissing Lily had nothing on it, and Will—might as well not have existed. Who the hell was Will, anyway? The press of Sirius’s body, and the knowledge that it was Sirius, were enough to flip something in James’s brain, and what he would’ve considered tame a month ago was suddenly wild.
Sirius shifted, just a little, so that when James kept moving he was lined up and thrusting along the cut of Sirius’s hip. It shouldn’t’ve, but somehow that made it even better. Before James really knew what was happening, he was coming, throbbing and almost hurting with every pulse of his release, and Sirius was right there, watching him through lidded eyes, taking it all in and—
Fuck.
With an obscene groan, Sirius was coming, too, James could see it the way his head fell back, felt his cock jerking with it even through their robes.
James smothered the sound he made by pressing his face against Sirius’s shoulder.
They stayed there, pressed together and panting, slumped against the wall, for what might’ve been minutes but could’ve been hours for all that James knew or cared. At some point, the hand Sirius had on James’s hip had slid around his back—and the hand in his hair had loosened and was kind of, well, petting. It felt good. Really good.
Cuddling.
They were basically cuddling.
It really shouldn’t’ve felt nearly as good as the orgasm just a bit ago, but it did. It definitely did.
“We are doing that again,” Sirius said. It was kind of muffled, since he was pretty much speaking directly into James’s hair. “Soon.”
“Tomorrow,” James agreed, and turned his head so he could mouth at Sirius’s neck. Just, idly. Because it was there, and he could.
Sirius tasted like sweat, and he made a little startled noise, but he didn’t try to move away, so James kept it up.
“Right after lunch, in the History of Magic classroom?” Sirius suggested.
James hummed an affirmative. He nodded, too, in case Sirius misinterpreted the humming.
They stayed that way for a good while.
#
“There you are!”
James compulsively smoothed down the front of his robes, as if what he’d just been up to might be showing in a wrinkle here or a smudge there, even though Sirius had been the one to straighten their clothes up after. He fixed an appropriately subdued smile on his face, for Lily’s benefit.
They were out on patrol, to make sure none of the lower year students were out sneaking around and getting themselves into trouble. They were not out here to be meeting sexy Slytherins for inter-House trysts.
“Lily, hey,” he said, turning to face her.
Lily drew up next to him and stopped, hands on her hips, and wearing her Head Girl face. “I’ve been looking for you, we should have started back by now,” she said, stern. “I promised Remus.”
“Sorry,” James said, quickly, dropping the smile. Clearly it wasn’t working. “I’m here now, though?”
“Yes, you are. But where have you been?” Lily asked, all long-suffering.
James cleared his throat. “I, uh, ran into Black.”
“Oh, really?” Lily looked surprised. “Normally, a Black found out-of-bounds at night I’d assume Black Black, but you don’t seem excited, so. What was Black the Younger doing out this time of night?”
“What?” James said, alarmed. He had definitely not been with Black the Younger. “No, Sirius. The, uh, older one.”
Lily looked even more surprised. “Really? But you don’t seem—Wait, you mean he let you catch him?”
Oh, had Sirius ever.
James really hoped it was too dim here under the torches for Lily to see the back of his neck flushing with heat.
“What do you mean let, anyway,” he said hurriedly. “I’m excellent at catching students out past their bedtime.”
Thankfully, Lily didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. “Yes, it’s all that experience you’ve had on the other side of it,” she retorted.
“Hey, you used to enjoy that experience,” James said, meaning to keep the banter going so she’d continue to not catch on—only to immediately think better of it. Maybe referencing the relationship that hadn’t worked out between them wasn’t his best tactic ever.
“Uh-huh,” Lily said. Her lips were twitching like she was fighting a smile, though. “But there’s the average delinquent fourthie out for a snog, and then there’s Sirius Black.”
“Are you saying he’s a better breed of rulebreaker?”
“I’m saying Black hasn’t been caught breaking a rule since before summer. I’d sort of assumed he’d ascended to a higher plateau of sneaking,” explained Lily. “He is sort of the best at school.”
“You—best—higher plateau,” James sputtered.
Lily patted his arm, but otherwise didn’t seem moved by James’s outrage. “Well, you are on the side of the teachers, now, aren’t you?”
“Lily,” James said, wounded.
Unrepentant, Lily grinned. She patted his arm again, then started back toward the Tower. “So, then, you ran into Black,” she began, calling over her shoulder until James got his feet to work and moved to follow. “You send him on his way back to Slytherin?”
“Mm, yeah,” James replied. He licked his lips, remembering the satisfied look on Sirius’s face and the way he’d sauntered away toward the dungeons, when they’d parted.
“Serves him right, letting himself get caught,” Lily said.
“Oh, definitely,” James said. An orgasm absolutely served Sirius right for letting James get his mouth on him. Maybe next time, he would get a chance to really get his mouth on Sirius.
James’s own gait took an a bit of swagger, but Lily didn’t seem to notice, so that was okay.
#
Someone yanked open the curtains on Sirius’s bed and stood looming next to it.
Sirius didn’t bother moving. It was obviously Regulus—he’d long since spelled his curtains to curse anyone else who tried to touch them. He didn’t think anyone else had even come near them, not since third year, and what they’d done to Evan Rosier.
“Okay, that’s starting to get disturbing,” Regulus said, after a minute.
Sirius opened his eyes, and looked up at Regulus, whose face was all twisted and pursed-mouthed. “What are you on about?”
“You were smiling,” Regulus hissed. He let go of Sirius’s curtain with one hand, and gestured vaguely in the direction of Sirius’s head. “Really smiling. At nothing.”
Well, that wasn’t worth continuing to look at Regulus. Or anything that wasn’t James. Sirius closed his eyes again.
“It was too at something,” he said. “Just not something that’s here.”
There was a pause.
“Oh, for the love of Salazar.”
“Hm?”
Regulus smacked him. Actually hit him, on the shoulder, with his hand.
Sirius’s eyes flew open. “Oi, what the bloody hell?”
Regulus glared. “You pulled Potter, didn’t you.”
“So what if I did?”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
Blinking, Sirius drew up short. He considered Regulus, the grumpy look on his face, the way his arms were crossed defensively over his chest.
“You… actually care,” he said, slowly.
“Well, obviously. You’ve only been obsessed with him for years.” Regulus scowled. “I can’t believe you wouldn’t tell me.”
“I thought you were tired of hearing about him,” Sirius said defensively.
Regulus threw his arms in the air. “That was when I thought you were just pining uselessly.”
“Oi, I wasn’t pining.”
“Sure, and I suppose you haven’t been stalking him, either?” Regulus said.
Sirius went to defend himself from that horrid and unfounded accusation, but he got another good look at Regulus’s face, and wisely decided to keep his mouth shut. “Whatever,” he said, “it’s not like James minds.”
Regulus rolled his eyes hard enough Sirius was surprised he didn’t sprain something. “You know, you two deserve each other. Budge up, I want to play Snap.”
#
Sirius was already there, looking kind of impatient and extremely hot, when James got to the History of Magic classroom, ten minutes after he was supposed to.
“Sorry I’m late,” James said, letting Sirius crowd him back against one of the desks.
“What kept you?” Sirius asked, burying his face in James’s neck. He didn’t start mouthing at it, though, just nuzzled at it with his nose, like he was revelling in just being close to James.
“The Heads decided to have an unscheduled meeting.” James slipped his arms around to Sirius’s back and tugged him closer, so they touched all the way from their chests down to their thighs. James would’ve been embarrassed about being half-hard already, just touching Sirius, but Sirius’s own growing erection was pressed to James’s hip. “Something about so many students staying this year that they’re gonna have more big feasts.”
“Fancy that, teachers thinking up boring festivities everyone’s expected to attend.”
“Yeah,” James said, dumbly. He had no idea how Sirius could sound so lazy and unconcerned even while he was rocking his growing erection against James. He fisted a hand in Sirius’s hair and pulled his head up to kiss him.
Sirius’s mouth was wet, like he’d been licking his lips while he waited. It opened under James’s.
James didn’t let them get too involved in the whole snogging and humping thing, because—while, yes, tongues in mouths and rubbing one off against each other were both awesome and James was absolutely down with both of them—he had a plan. He’d been thinking, possibly with a hand on dick but who could prove that, and the result of these thoughts was that he wasn’t going to waste anymore time getting down on something else.
He pulled away before Sirius’s mouth distracted him too much.
“Wait, no, what are you doing,” Sirius said, his hands tightening on James’s shoulders. “Come back here.”
“No,” James said, grinning.
“But we were kissing,” Sirius protested, the corners of his mouth turning down. “I liked the kissing.”
“Well, you’ll like this, too,” James said, and slid the rest of the way to his knees.
Sirius’s eyes went wide. “You’re—Fuck.”
“Yep,” James said.
Sirius’s hips arched away from the desk, jerkily, like it was involuntary, so James pressed his hands in and held them down; Sirius let out a little whimper. His eyes were still huge.
“You don’t have to look so shocked. It’s not like I’ve never done this before,” James said.
Sirius’s eyebrows went up. “Oh, really. That definitely never made the rumour mill.”
“Well, nobody knows, so it wouldn’t. He’s a Muggle,” James explained, flashing a grin up at him. “Lives near my parents.”
“Lucky Muggle.”
“He was also,” James said, pushing Sirius’s robes up a little higher and rubbing his cheek against the thin trail of hair going down into Sirius’s pants, “where I used to get my smokes.”
“Not any more, though,” Sirius said.
“No,” James agreed, and Sirius probably wasn’t thinking of it that way but James totally meant more than just the cigs.
Who would have any interest in blowing stumpy muggle boys, when they could have Sirius Black, he of the criminal cheekbones and the wide shoulders and that devastatingly brilliant cleverness? James certainly didn’t. Especially not with Sirius looking down at him like that, all flushed and dark-eyed and staring like he was fucking mesmerised.
James pulled Sirius’s pants down, curled a hand around the base of his erection, and didn’t waste any more time teasing. He got his mouth around Sirius and sank down as far as he could without things getting awkward, starting up the fastest rhythm he could, sucking the whole time.
It was over really quickly.
One moment Sirius’s breath hitched and stopped, his hands went bruisingly tight on James’s shoulders, and the next he was coming, pulsing in James’s mouth. James didn’t even really mind the lack of warning, because the sound Sirius made when James didn’t pull off, just swallowed, looking up at him the whole time—
It was the best fucking thing James had ever heard.
“Holy bloody shit,” Sirius said, weakly, freeing a hand to pat twice at James’s cheek, then hastily putting it back on James shoulder like he needed it to keep him steady. Like the desk behind him wasn’t enough, and he might keel over sideways without James to anchor him.
James stayed kneeling for a moment, catching his breath. And, honestly, feeling a bit smug.
Then, hands on his shoulders, Sirius dragged James up—he thought into a kiss, but at the last moment Sirius turned and pushed James down flat on the desk.
James whimpered.
“So, I haven’t been here before,” Sirius said, licking his way down James’s throat, never with enough pressure to leave any marks, like maybe he was being careful. He ran his hand down James’s chest, cupped it around James’s erection through his robes.
“That’s—okay,” James gasped.
“I promise I’m a quick study, though.”
James made a strangled noise. His eyes slammed closed without his permission, and his head dropped back, and he could feel his cock jerking against Sirius’s hand, but he wasn’t even embarrassed because damn.
Sirius pushed James’s robes up and bent over, and, yeah.
He was a very quick study.
#
“Where are my bloody glasses?” James asked, once they’d got their breath back, squinting and scowling around. He was still flushed and sex-stupid, his hair was a mess all over rather than just sticking up in the back, and he sounded almost annoyed at the sheer inconvenience of having to see after getting his brains sucked out through his cock.
It was possibly the most adorable thing Sirius had ever seen.
“Here,” he said, flicking his wand to summon that glasses that had gone—all the way over there? Really? Huh.
Sirius held them up to James.
Who just turned toward Sirius’s voice, and leaned his face expectantly, until Sirius got the hint and slid the glasses on for him. James was grinning the whole time.
Sirius had finish up by kissing him, long and slow.
“C’mon,” James said, even while he got a hand in Sirius’s hair to hold him still and draw the kiss out and out and out, tongue sliding against Sirius’s and lighting him up all over. “Seriously, I’ve got to get back, they’re gonna start to wonder.”
Personally, Sirius didn’t give two shits what James’s friends thought about his absence, but. James obviously cared, so.
“Yeah,” he said, reluctantly pulling free and stepping back from James. He ran a hand down the front of his robes, and then, because he couldn’t resist, the front of James’s, smoothing imaginary wrinkles. He’d already neatened them up with a couple of handy little charms that he’d originally learned for dealing with the aftermath of paint. “I want to see you again,” Sirius said, without thinking about whether it was a good idea. He told himself he didn’t care, because honestly, he really was nearly desperate to see James again. “Tonight.”
Instead of looking annoyed at this demand to let Sirius further monopolise his time, as he’d been half afraid he would, James beamed. “Well, I’ve got another stupid meeting with Professor McGonagall—”
Sirius groaned, half in sympathy but mostly in disbelief. “Another one?”
“—but that should be over by eight-thirty, so,” James paused, clearly thinking through logistics. “Say, nine o’clock? In that dark hall by the kitchens?”
“It’s a date,” Sirius said.
#
“I’m beginning to think you’re perpetually late,” Sirius said, much later that night.
“Sorry,” James replied, a little out of breath. He was grinning, and flushed like he’d sprinted down from Gryffindor Tower. “Sorry, I finally got away from McGonagall talking about some special Boxing Day feast tomorrow night, and then I had to ditch my mates, and that took forever.”
“Ah,” Sirius said.
He hadn’t had to ditch anyone, to sneak out. He’d tossed a tiny wave at Reg, as he left the common room. Reg had rolled his eyes, and waved back, and that had been it.
“And it’s a full moon, so I’ve got to meet Remus in an hour,” James added.
“Well,” Sirius said, forcing a smirk that he didn’t entirely feel yet, “we’d best make the most of it, then. Right?”
Grinning, James leaned in to push a deep, dizzying kiss on Sirius’s mouth.
A little while later, Sirius had his mouth on James’s neck and was just thinking about loosening the fastenings around James’s throat to get to more skin—and get James to let out a few more of those bitten-off, high little noises he was making in Sirius’s ear—when something made the little hairs on the back of his neck prickle on end.
Sirius stilled his mouth, listening.
From around the corner came the sound of footsteps. Without thinking about it, Sirius pulled away, taking a couple steps back.
James stared at him, looking startled and confused, but then the source of the footsteps—a couple of second year Gryffindors—rounded the corner. James’s eyes widened, before his face smoothed out—too much. It was closed off, shuttered, in a way Sirius hadn’t seen him before. Ever. Even when he was being all aloof-golden-child, he was still smiling and friendly.
With a lowering feeling in his gut, Sirius took a moment to really wished he hadn’t paid enough attention to know that, because—
James wasn’t smiling now. His mouth, reddened and a little swollen from how hard Sirius had just been kissing him, was drawn tight and flat. The flush on his cheeks was fading fast, barely even there on the tips of his ears and the back of his neck anymore.
He drew his shoulders up, and everything inviting and soft about him disappeared just like that.
The bottom dropped out of Sirius’s stomach entirely.
“Celestina, Matilda,” James said, and of course he knew their names. “What are you doing outside Gryffindor Tower this late?”
The two girls were looking between James and Sirius like they couldn’t figure out what was going on. “We’re—hungry?” the taller, redheaded of the two said.
James tipped his head to give them an unimpressed look over his glasses. Sirius barely held in a snort; that was an obvious tactic, since James actually needed the lenses to see anything that wasn’t right in front of his face.
“Really, now, Matilda,” James said. “That’s the best you can do?”
Celestina and Matilda squirmed, trading glances. After a moment, the shorter one, who must’ve been Celestina, tried, “We were trying to find you to, uh, report a… problem?”
“Better,” James said, and offered them a smile. “But still not good enough. Come on, back to the Tower with you.”
“Aww, buggering crumpets,” Celestina and Matilda groaned—but they were already turning around.
“And to see you get there, I’ll just be following you,” James announced.
Celestina and Matilda groaned even more loudly.
“Better get back to your House as well, Black,” James said, flicking Sirius barely half a glance, and a tense, brief smile.
Something in Sirius’s chest sank and went cold, not unlike every time he walked into the Slytherin common room.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, feeling like he’d just lost something and he’d missed how. “Sure thing, Ja—Potter.”
Right before James rounded the corner after Celestina and Matilda, he tossed over his shoulder, “See ya.”
“See ya,” Sirius said, to the empty corridor.
#
In the cold light of morning on Boxing Day—which wouldn’t have reached Sirius’s bed even if his hangings hadn’t been closed, what with his dorm not having any windows because it was in a fucking dungeon—the whole situation seemed sort of dull and inevitable, rather than the devastating slap in the face it had felt like the night before.
So James had pretended not to know him. What had Sirius been expecting, honestly? James didn’t so much as have friends outside of Gryffindor, to say nothing of in Slytherin. Hell, sometimes he used to be actively nasty to Slytherins, much as Sirius hated to admit Severus ever had a point about anything—and once or twice in previous years he’d even said mean things to Sirius. So it wasn’t like there was no precedent, here.
And that whole business where he got ditched without a word of warning, that had probably been for the best, because it wasn’t like Sirius would’ve just let James get all over him again right after acting like Sirius was a mildly interesting bit of statuary with which he happened to have a passing familiarity. The mood had basically died the moment James pretended he didn’t exist. Bam, that was it; fun time official over.
Oh, who was Sirius even trying to kid. There wasn’t anyone around to read his mind, and he knew himself well enough by now to know that he absolutely would have let James go right back to the snogging. He was already letting himself be the golden Gryffindor’s grubby little secret.
“Fuck,” Sirius said aloud, disappointed in himself and life and the universe in general.
Then, because lying in bed talking to himself was a surefire way to end up getting those really alarmed, wary looks from the underclassmen again when Sirius’s dorm mates passed it on, Sirius forced himself to get up and face reality.
In this case, that apparently translated to skulking in the snow behind the Quidditch pitch, smoking most of his second-to-last pack, and trying to glare a hole in the gift for James that he’d wrapped so carefully and ostentatiously on the first day of break. He’d been carrying it around with him since last night, when he’d meant to hand it over.
Sirius should’ve given it to the house elves to deliver on Christmas morning, like anyone else would’ve. Or maybe not put the damn thing together in the first place.
He’d wanted to watch James’s face, when he opened it. Wanted to see the moment when he got it.
Merlin, Sirius was such a moron.
At least it looked like he wouldn’t have to be worrying about James telling everyone exactly how much of a fool Sirius’d been willing to be over him. That was something, anyway. Something small. A cold comfort, definitely—and that was without even taking into account the snow and ice and general freezing temperatures that equalled winter at Hogwarts.
Sirius flicked the end of his cigarette to the ground with the stumps of the rest he’d already smoked, crushing it into the snow with his heel purely because it was satisfying, and vanished the whole lot of them. He collected the gift and the pack with its four unsmoked cigarettes and stuffed them back into his pockets, slid his wand back into the holster on his forearm.
He straightened his spine, and let the mask he used when he interacted with the rest of the school fall into place. It didn’t feel as solid as it used to, and Sirius told himself it didn’t matter, he’d have time to fix it. Later. He took a deep breath.
He went back inside.
But because it was apparently going to be that kind of day, he rounded a corner just off the entrance hall, and almost smacked right into James. He was wearing wrinkled robes, and carrying his book bag dangling by his knees from one hand, for once, instead of slung over his shoulder. James looked rumpled and tired and like everything Sirius wanted.
They both stopped, and looked at each other.
Sirius thought about saying hello, being polite and indifferent instead of staring like some kind of wounded fool, but in the end he couldn’t seem to convince his vocal chords to cooperate with his mouth. Well, fine, stony silence instead of a greeting was just the way things were going to go, then. He backed up a couple steps, almost on reflex. He didn’t turn and flee, though, like he kind of wanted to.
James cleared his throat, after a minute. “I was, uh, on the way back from the library,” he said. He started to shrug, all nonchalance, then stopped, looking awkward.
Sirius still wasn’t having much luck with the speaking thing, so all he managed was a vague noise in the back of his throat, which was feeling all thick and tight because, fuck, Sirius was such a pathetic idiot.
“So. Are you, um, coming back in?” James asked. And, when Sirius just kept staring, James nodded toward Sirius’s shoulders, probably at the cloak and scarf he was still wearing. “Or just going out? If you’re having a smoke, I might invite myself, after last night I—”
Sirius’s hands clenched to fists in his pocket, and—there was the distinctive sound of gift paper crinkling. Stupid bloody present.
“—could use…one…” James trailed off, his brow furrowed, and cocked his head like he was listening for the noise again. Of course he’d heard it.
It was Sirius’s turn to clear his throat.
“I was just coming in, actually,” he said, glad that his voice at least was level.
Face falling a little, or maybe that was Sirius’s imagination, James nodded. “Oh, right.”
They stood there for a few moments that probably weren’t excruciatingly long but felt like it to Sirius. He shifted on his feet, and the gift paper crinkled again. The bloody buggering gift. Ugh. Sirius was sick of the damn thing.
Well.
It was meant for James all along, wasn’t it?
“Oh, fuck. Fuck,” Sirius said. He couldn’t believe he was actually going to do this. Wrapping his hand properly around the edge of the gift, he took the few steps to close the distance between them. “I have—something. For you.”
“You, uh, you what?” James said, stuttering a little. He started to lift his arm, like he was going to yank his hand through his hair in that way he did. He must’ve caught himself, though, because he winced, and his hand dropped back down pretty quickly. “Si—irius?”
“I have something for you,” Sirius said. James blinked at him, like maybe he thought the something was going to be a—a hex or a punch to the face.
Rolling his eyes, Sirius pulled the damn golden thing from his pocket. “Look, just. Here,” he said, and shoved the package at James. “This is for you.”
James stared down at it, visibly startled, almost like he wasn’t sure how it had ended up in front of him. He didn’t take hold of it. “What is it?”
What, did he think Sirius was giving him a cursed object or a, a horcrux?
“It’s a gift, surely you’ve seen them before.”
“What?” James said, lifting his head to look at Sirius with the same surprised, confused expression. “You got me a present? Why would you—”
“It’s Christmas, that’s what people do, isn’t it?” Sirius said, smirking because the alternative was actually giving in and hexing the daft bugger.
“I didn’t get you anything,” James said, dumbly.
“Yeah, didn’t really think you had. Just take it, would you?”
“But why?”
“Why what?” Sirius asked, losing his smirk. When someone gave you a Christmas present, you accepted it. What was so hard to understand about—
“Why did you get me anything?”
Sirius shoved the box at James’s chest and let go; James grabbed it automatically, his eyes blowing wide and huge.
“Because I wanted to,” Sirius snapped. “You arse.”
He spun on his heel and walked away, pretending not to be listening for James to call after him.
(James didn’t.)
#
Running into Sirius was a surprise, though maybe it shouldn’t’ve been. Lately it seemed like Sirius was always there, and with how often James had been thinking of him since last night, it was really more a surprise that he hadn’t run into Sirius sooner.
But Sirius hadn’t acted like the person who’d snogged James and shagged him in empty classrooms. He’d looked like the standoffish Sirius from before, with an extra layer of frost, and he’d—he’d—
Sirius had given him a present.
Well, he had, for values of ‘given’ that included stabbing the most tender places of James’s ribcage with the pointy business ends of wrapped mystery gifts, as James had stood there gritting his teeth to hold in a gasp of pain, reflex the only thing to keep the present pinned to his chest. And not, say, tumbled on the floor the way it might otherwise have ended up, if he didn’t have such strong Quidditch instincts and Sirius had still just jammed a pointy corner thing into the deepest bruise between two ribs.
He wondered, in the part of his mind not swearing the air as blue and black as his ribs, if he should’ve mentioned to Sirius that he’d been moving slowly because of the tender spots all down his left side, or if he was supposed to have kept it to himself. After all, Sirius hadn’t asked why he’d been in the library and given him the opportunity to mention the completely unhelpful book on healing spells. (He really needed to remember to do research about this sometime other than the day after a full moon.)
But maybe James should’ve brought it up, himself? Maybe Sirius was good at healing spells.
No, why would he be.
In the end, James decided that it was a good thing he hadn’t said anything about his injuries.
Sirius might just’ve shoved the damn present even harder, if he’d known.
#
Book bag for once held tightly with both hands, James entered the Gryffindor common room and immediately scanned it for—Ah, there was Remus, thankfully by himself. He was sitting folded up in an armchair by the fire, reading a book that James recognised as a Muggle novel, though he wasn’t quite sure why he knew that.
There were dark hollows under Remus’s eyes, but he was downstairs instead of in their dorm, so James was going to trust that he wouldn’t mind being talked to.
James went over.
“Remus,” he greeted, aiming for casual. “Hello, there.”
Remus spared him a brief look. “Hello, there, to you, too,” he said, somewhat flatly. He was probably still exhausted. “Something up?”
“I, ah, wanted to talk to you,” James said. He gingerly sat down on the couch that shared a corner table with Remus’s armchair, and carefully set his book bag on the floor between his feet. He kept a hand on the straps, just to make sure it didn’t go anywhere.
“I figured, what with you coming over here and interrupting my reading,” Remus said.
“Oh. Yeah.”
Just for something to do with his hands, so he wasn’t fidgeting about with them like a moron or shoving them in his hair all obviously, James made like he was digging through his bag. He thought he had something sugary in there, somewhere. Maybe some—
Just as his fingers closed on something that seemed likely to be a sweet, the back of his hand brushed smooth, crinkly gift paper, the curling edge of a ribbon. James hastily pulled his hand away, maybe a little too quickly. He glanced down, to make sure no gilt had rubbed off on it, or anything tell-tale of that nature.
No, thank Merlin.
And, ah, what he’d found was a chocolate frog, only slightly squashed. James pretended that snatching it out of his bag was what he’d intended all along. Remus didn’t seem to take particular notice of James’s flailing, which, good. James didn’t want him to. He was looking at his book again, though, which, less good.
“So,” Remus said, still oblivious, “what is it?”
“What is what?”
“James. The reason you came over here?”
“All right, so say I’ve been—seeing somebody,” James said. “What would you say?”
“That it’s always nice to know your eyes are working,” Remus said, turning a page in his book. “I worry, you know.”
Annoyed, James threw the chocolate frog at him. He aimed for Remus’s chest, though, instead of his face, because they were friends. “Not that kind of seeing!”
Remus glanced up, eyebrows high on his forehead. “What, you keep your eyes closed when you’re with her?” he asked.
“You’re missing the point on purpose, aren’t you,” James groused.
“Ah, there you go. I knew there must be a reason you made Head Boy,” Remus said. He turned his eyes back to his book.
“I’m trying to ask for advice, here!”
Half the room turned to stare, and James realised he might’ve said that a little more loudly than necessary. Okay, he might’ve shouted it. Cringing internally, James made shooing gestures. After a minute or two, everyone lost interest and turned away.
Well, almost everyone.
“James Potter, admitting he needs help with something,” Lily said, coming over and perching on the arm of Remus’s chair. Peter was a few seconds behind her, coming from the other side of the room. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Ha ha, you’re hilarious, Lily.”
“So, what great dilemma has finally brought you low?” Lily asked, as Peter dropped onto the other end of the couch.
James considered it. Telling his ex-girlfriend that he was confused by the boy he wasn’t even sure he was really in a relationship with. Yeah, he considered it—for about two seconds. He elected to keep his mouth shut, instead.
“I think,” Remus offered, once it was clear James wasn’t going to speak up for himself, “it’s about someone he’s been seeing.”
“I thought you wanted us to stay out of your love life,” Peter blurted.
“That was before he started hooking up, apparently. He’s decided he wants our opinions now,” Remus said.
James glared, wishing he had more chocolate frogs to throw. “I’m starting to regret bringing this up.”
“Wait, you’ve been hooking up?” Lily said, her brows furrowing. “With whom? And when?”
“Uh,” James said, bravely resisting the urge to squirm. “Just, someone, sometimes? Now and then?”
“But when have you had time? The professors’ve got us so busy, and besides, you told me you keep having run-ins with Black oh my God, do not tell me that you’ve been—“
James winced. “Only a few times now?”
“James Potter!”
“Wait, wait,” Peter said, face screwed up with confusion. “What’re you saying? Who’s he been seeing?”
“Black, apparently,” Remus said, still with his attention on his book, the jerk.
Peter gasped. “What, a Slytherin?”
“Only technically,” James blurted. Then, immediately thinking better of saying that, and what it it could reveal, “And anyway, there’s nothing wrong with being a Slytherin.”
“Yeah, okay,” Peter said, still looking vaguely horrified. “But, really, mate, a fifth year?”
James gaped. Lily stared. Remus lowered his book and blinked owlishly.
“Uh, I’m really quite sure he’s in our year,” James said, after a moment.
“No,” Peter argued, shaking his head. “Regulus Black’s a fifth year. They said so at the last Quidditch match.”
Groaning, James put his hands over his face, and flopped backwards against the couch. He regretted it immediately, when he ended up letting out an undignified huff of agony. Damn, when had this sofa got that lumpy and pokey, or were his bruises just that bad?
Lily snorted. “Wrong Black, mate,” she said, sounding annoyed. She was probably rolling her eyes hard enough to hurt. “Romeo here seems to have been romancing the older brother.”
“His name is Sirius, you know,” James muttered, without bothering to lower his hands.
“Yes, we know,” Remus said. “Everybody knows that.”
“I can’t believe you actually made time with him,” Lily cut in. “And that you didn’t tell me. You must’ve been with him all those times you were late back from patrolling. Did you think I’d mind that you’re dating someone else?”
Well, James hadn’t, but now he might start worrying about that. Sometimes girls got upset by weird things. Maybe he should see about getting her another boyfriend, once he figured out whether he’d bollocksed things up with Sirius completely or not. “Of course not!” he said, anyway. “Don’t be ridiculous, why would you mind that I’m dating.”
“Are you really?” Peter said, eagerly, his voice amazed. James had to slide his hands down so he could peek over his fingers at that, and yes, Peter was staring at James in freaking awe, or something. “You’re dating Sirius Black?”
“Yes. Well, actually, no,” James corrected himself.
Remus raised his eyebrows. He looked very unimpressed.
“I’m pretty sure that’s one of those things where you either are, or you aren’t,” Lily said, also looking like she thought James was a bit daft, which was ridiculous, because James was doing at least as well as they were in most of his classes.
“I don’t know, okay? We weren’t really dating, there weren’t any dates, but we were… you know.”
“Really,” Peter said, eyes wide, at the same time Lily flashed a brief grin and said, “Oh, yeah, I definitely know.”
“Classy,” Remus said, with an especially acerbic eye roll.
“But I think probably he doesn’t want people to know,” James took a breath, and covered his eyes again, because he didn’t really want to see their reactions as he admitted, “And anyway, I’m not even sure we’re still you-know-what-ing.”
“If you can’t even say it, you probably shouldn’t have been doing it to begin with,” Remus said.
James dropped his hands completely, to glare at Remus. “Okay, fine, then—I don’t know if we’re still fucking in deserted bloody corridors.”
“Profanity doesn’t increase maturity,” Remus muttered, but the corner of his mouth was twitching.
“I’m disappointed in you, James,” Lily said, mockingly. She put a hand over her heart. “Not even trysting in an empty classroom?”
“Oh, we used those, too.”
Rolling her eyes again, Lily pulled an impressively disapproving face.
“So why don’t you know?” Remus asked, thankfully cutting off whatever Lily was opening her mouth to say before James’s brain could be scarred by her scorn. “Is there something that makes you think you aren’t still sleeping together?”
“Yeah, actually,” James said. “Something—happened, last night.”
“What? What happened?” Lily demanded, her teasing manner dropping away.
“Some of the kids nearly caught us snogging. Sirius must’ve heard them coming, and. He.” James stopped, and ran a hand through his hair. He tugged at it, frustrated, and not really wanting to say aloud the moment he’d been reliving over and over in his head since it had happened.
“He what, James?” Remus asked.
“He leapt away from me like I’d suddenly gone up in flames,” James said. “I was gonna ignore it, but today he was still acting all weird, so.”
There were several really long moments of silence.
“Maybe he thought it was a teacher?” Peter suggested.
“I really don’t think Sirius cares what the teachers catch him doing, mate,” James said, shaking his head. “Remember last year, when McGonagall caught him sneaking into the library after midnight with a bag of chicken feathers, a gallon of green paint, and a bottle of Firewhiskey? He waved and asked how her night was going.”
“Oh, yeah,” Peter replied, in a sinking voice.
“Yeah,” James agreed.
“Have you considered that maybe he didn’t know how you’d feel about people finding you two together?” Lily asked.
“You’re saying he thought I’d mind?” James said. He frowned. “That’s rubbish. Why would he think that?”
“Well, you’ve never been seen with anyone but me. He might’ve thought you weren’t interested in coming out of the closet.”
“What closet? We never did anything in a closet!” James protested.
Lily sighed. “Never mind.”
“James,” Remus said, slowly. James looked over, to find Remus watching him thoughtfully.
“Yeah?” James said, wary, and fully prepared to be defensive.
“You said he jumped away like you were on fire.”
“Yeah, because he did.”
“Well, what happened after that?” Remus asked.
James opened his mouth—and closed it again with a click. He cleared his throat.
Peter seemed confused, but Remus had narrowed his eyes, and Lily was looking frankly suspicious.
“James,” she said, the gentleness gone out of her tone. “What did you do?”
“I might’ve pretended I didn’t just have my tongue in his mouth, or that we’d ever spoken for more than two seconds. And, I maybe called him by his last name. And, uh, turned my back and walked away,” James said, carefully not looking at any of them as he added the last bit.
There was another, even longer stretch of silence.
“Well, ouch,” Remus said, finally.
“He moved away first!”
“So, what, you thought you’d be fair and abandoned him without a word,” Lily said. She shook her head. “That’s cold, James. That’s really cold.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was afraid you were going to say. Bugger.” James drove his hands into his hair and tugged until his scalp hurt. “You definitely think that was bad, then?”
“Yes, it was bad,” Remus said. He used the stern voice that had been the main reason James was so surprised to be made Head Boy, grades and rule breaking and furry little problems notwithstanding.
“What do you mean ‘that’,” Lily said. “Jesus, did you do something else?”
“I don’t want to tell you,” James grumbled. “You’ll be mean.”
“We can’t give you advice if we don’t know what you did,” Remus said.
“Are you sure?”
“Not good advice,” Remus said, damn his logic.
“Come on, James,” Lily cut in. “I promise to only be mean if you really, really deserve it.”
James huffed. “Oh, thanks loads.”
“James,” Remus said, pointedly.
“Okay, okay, Merlin, fine,” James said, already wishing he’d never said anything. “Earlier today he came up to me all cool and distant and gave me a present, even though it’s past Christmas, and I stood there like an idiot and let him walk away.”
Remus and Lily traded indecipherable looks. It didn’t bother James that he couldn’t make them out, though probably it should have. If it was important, they’d tell him eventually.
“What was the present?” Remus asked.
“I… don’t actually know yet.”
Lily narrowed her eyes. “I beg your pardon?”
“Look, I haven’t opened it yet!” James protested. Then, hastily, because she looked about ready to throw something at him, “It’s in my book bag.”
The other three stared at him. James shifted uncomfortably; why was this surprising? He hadn’t been anywhere truly private since Sirius gave it to him, of course the thing was still in his book bag.
“Well?” Remus said, when James kept looking at them, waiting for he-didn’t-know-what. “Open it!”
Which was how James found himself peeling off the shiny, golden paper in front of his friends, even though he’d been planning to keep whatever it contained a secret for a while. Say, the next several weeks. Maybe months.
Sirius had given him something. Voluntarily! He couldn’t really be blamed, wanting to keep it to himself, surely.
Inside the wrapper, there were two slim books, the top one slightly more beat up. It was a volume on magical tracking and detection, that James thought looked a bit familiar for some reason. Underneath, the second book proclaimed itself, in gold embossed lettering, to be about binding spells—that one smelled old.
There were also two pieces of parchment: one folded over many times, doing nothing to disguise how big it must be; and a small scrap on top, clearly a note, with James’s name on top in big, blocky letters.
HALLO JAMES, it said, and,
I know we haven’t really spoken much, but this little project seems like it would be right up your alley. Help a lad out? We can even share the results.
—Sirius
“Huh,” James said. He squinted at it for a moment.
“What?” Lily asked, all curiosity. The next thing James knew, she’d leaned over and plucked the note out of his hand to read it herself. “Oooh. So what’s this about not having spoken, have you two been so busy shagging you haven’t talked?”
James glared, and tried to grab the note back. It didn’t really work, since he couldn’t actually move very much or very quickly, not without wanting to knock himself out to escape the pain. “Shut it, we’ve talked.”
“So why—”
“Really,” Remus said, taking the little scrap of parchment from Lily, who was passing it over with a rather mischievous grin.
James glared some more; what did they think they were doing, putting their grubby paws on his note.
Remus scanned the few words quickly, his eyebrows going up for a moment. “If you’ve talked, why would the note say you haven’t?” he asked.
“Well, he must have written it before we—before,” James said.
“And, what, wrapped it up anyway?” Remus paused, and a tiny frown line appeared between his brows. “Or, no, the whole gift must have been wrapped before you started.”
“What is all this, anyway?” Peter asked.
Because Peter hadn’t tried to steal James’s note yet, James felt generous enough to hold up the books, for him to look at. Except Peter actually reached out and took the top book, despite James’s resulting scowl—and then Lily snatched the other. James was left with only the folded parchment.
“Oi,” James muttered, tightening his grip on the parchment, in case one of his awful snatchy friends decided they’d like to nick that off him, too.
“Hey, this is from the library,” Peter exclaimed.
“What?” Remus said, and looked more thoughtful. He immediately traded James’s note to Lily for the other book.
“It says right here, ‘property of the Hogwarts library’, and all that,” Peter said, having flipped a couple pages into the tracking and detection book, to the flyleaves. He looked alarmed. “See?”
“So?” James asked.
“So, it’s stolen property,” Lily said, dryly. But she dropped the note back in James’s book bag, so he couldn’t be too annoyed at her tone. “You know, possibly the sort of thing that should concern you?”
James rolled his eyes, and turned to the parchment in his hands. Whatever. He’d get the books back in a moment, let his friends paw at them if they wanted to. Sirius had given them to him, no matter how much anyone else touched them. He’d look at them later.
The parchment, unfolded, revealed a roughly-sketched outline of—a castle?
No, James realised, recognising a hidden passage leading off the page from underneath a statue.
It was this castle.
It was Hogwarts, outlined as accurately as a static picture could outline a constantly moving magical castle. That was actually kind of annoying—if James was going to have a map of the school, he’d want to be able to see the layout in real time, and maybe anyone wandering around. Definitely, he’d want to see where the staircases were—
Sirius must have seen the same problem, with an unmoving map. He’d seen it, and he’d thought to take the problem to James.
No wonder Sirius had included the spellbooks.
“He got me a puzzle,” James said, beaming down at the scribbled-on parchment in his lap. Not just a puzzle, but a personal project, that he trusted James to be able to help him with. It was as good as a declaration of respect—Sirius bloody Black thought he, James Potter, wasn’t just another mere mortal running around to be laughed at.
“James,” Remus said suddenly, and intently. James looked up, to find Remus staring at the inside cover of the book on binding spells.
“What?”
Remus lifted his head, slowly. He held the book out to James with ginger hands, rather like it was a live snake.
“What, Remus?” James asked, frowning. He didn’t reach for the book; he didn’t really want to let go of the almost-map.
“This is from the Black family’s private collection,” Remus said.
It took a moment to click, but then James felt his mouth drop open.
“So, he got you two nicked library books,” Peter piped up, into the sudden hush. “I thought he was supposed to be rich, why’s he giving you stolen things?”
James decided to ignore that. He leaned over and took the spell book, still open, and a glance down showed that, yes, it was marked with the Black family crest, and something scribbled in latin. There was a date in there somewhere, it looked like, from the nineteenth century.
“Uhm. Wow,” James breathed.
“Oh, yeah,” Lily said, tone heavy with sarcasm. “This guy really isn’t invested in you at all.”
“I—” James started, and had to clear his throat when his voice died. There were words, he had them, somewhere. He just couldn’t think of them at the moment.
“It’s a good thing you were a right arse to him,” Lily went on. “Imagine the present he would’ve given you if he thought you had feelings.”
“He—Uh, shit,” James said, dropping the book in his lap so he could yank both hands through his hair. “This—Merlin’s fuzzy bollocks.”
“Yes, I think that about sums it up,” Remus agreed. He crossed his arms, and raised his eyebrows. “Well?”
James glared at him, then down at the book from the Black family collection that Sirius had given to him. Bloody hell. Then back at Remus, who kept giving him that knowing, expectant, totally unhelpful look. “Well, what?” he snapped.
Remus and Lily traded a glance.
“Well,” Lily said. “How good a form are your apologies in, James?”
“Fuck, yeah, all right.” James sigh deeply. Then promptly winced. “One of you is healing me up first, though.”
He didn’t tell them it was mostly in case Sirius decided to shove anything at him again. They didn’t need to know that part.
#
Sirius didn’t let himself look across the Great Hall as he dropped into a seat at the Slytherin table. He was just glad there was hardly anyone at this end of the table yet, and nobody was likely to sit nearby if he was already there. If he’d had his way, he would’ve stayed in his dorm. In bed. With the curtains shut.
Stupid feasts. Stupid encouraged attendance.
Across the table, Regulus took one look at him and started frowning.
“What?” Sirius said, afraid he knew what was coming, but half hoping he was wrong.
“What’s the matter with you,” Regulus demanded.
“Nothing.”
“Which is why you look like someone—”
“Not now, Reg,” Sirius groaned. “Please.”
Regulus’s mouth closed as quickly as if Sirius had spelled it shut.
“Thanks,” Sirius said, rubbing tiredly at his face.
“Bloody hell,” Regulus muttered, actual concern on his face. He didn’t press, though; thank Merlin for small mercies.
Sirius propped his elbows on the table and slumped forward over his arms, letting his head hang so he didn’t have to look at Regulus’s expression—which also had the benefit of hiding his own. “Why did I think it was a good idea to stay over break, again?”
“I have no idea,” Regulus said. A pause. “Obviously, you were deranged.”
“Hah, yeah, a regular madman, that’s me.”
Regulus made a little noise that might’ve been a giggle. “Well, I’ve always thought so.”
The ghost of a smile tugging at his lips, half against his will, Sirius started to lift his head and show it to Regulus, since it was a safe bet that’s what he’d been going for.
“Sirius!”
Sirius froze, because that was, that had sounded just like—But it couldn’t be—
“Sirius,” James said again, closer but not any more quietly.
Sirius twisted in his seat, to find James jogging up to the Slytherin table behind him. James was smiling, an absurd smile that was soft around the edges and practically fond, and he was smiling it at Sirius.
“Sirius,” James said again, just in case it wasn’t already blindingly obvious to everyone in the hall who he was addressing so loudly. He came to a stop within arm’s reach of Sirius. “Hey.”
“Uh. Hey,” Sirius replied uncertainly. He propped an elbow back on the table and leaned against it, so he didn’t do anything dumb like lean forward, or grab James and shake him. What was he doing?
“You sitting here for the feast?” James asked, bizarrely.
“Yes,” Sirius said, slowly, trying not to show how confused he was.
James’s eyes drifted toward the spot next to Sirius, and Sirius followed his gaze. The spot was empty; most of the spots within twenty feet of Sirius were empty.
“Well,” James said, with a bright smile that was so wide it showed practically all his teeth, “that works for me, I guess.”
And then he swung a leg over the bench and sat down next to Sirius—at the Slytherin table. The pride of Gryffindor was voluntarily sitting at the Slytherin table. Sirius gawped.
Across the table, Regulus made a noise like a dying kneazle, and Sirius didn’t blame him even a little bit. If James hadn’t been attracting attention before, shouting Sirius’s name like that, he was certainly doing it now.
“You—” Sirius started, but had to stop, because he had no earthly idea what to even say.
James kept smiling. He scooted closer to Sirius, still straddling the bench, and, and he draped an arm around Sirius’s shoulders.
Sirius went perfectly still all over. It was just one arm, it had been around Sirius before, he’d enjoyed it around him before, but they were in front of at least half the school and it suddenly felt like it weighed a tonne.
“Sorry I’m late,” James said, smile melting into an expression that was—frankly, affectionate. “I got caught up in that present you gave me.“
Sirius licked his lips. He tried to remember how words worked. “So, you—liked it?”
James nodded. “I loved it,” he said.
“You did?” Sirius mumbled, trying to pretend to be more sure of himself than he felt, and for once failing miserably. “And you—get it?”
James gave him the biggest grin he’d ever seen on anybody in his whole life. “Yeah, I definitely ‘get it’. Actually, once we finish it, I think it’s gonna come in really handy, if you know what I mean.”
Sirius licked his lips, telling himself that if James didn’t mean that the way Sirius thought he did, that was fine and he wouldn’t be disappointed. James was still sitting here, touching Sirius in public. That was good, that was more than enough.
“I, yeah,” Sirius said, cautiously. “Handy.”
Sirius tried for a smile. James saw it and laughed, bright and happy.
He slipped his arm up, fitting the crook of his elbow to the back of Sirius’s neck, pulled him forward—and kissed him. Without really meaning to, Sirius found himself closing his eyes and kissing back, going so far as lifting his hand and burying it in James’s hair.
Someone swore. Something nearby crashed and shattered.
When James tried to pull away few moments later, Sirius tugged him even closer and deepened the kiss. James came easily, his other hand fisting in the front of Sirius’s robes, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Okay, maybe feasts weren’t that stupid. Gryffindors, either.
#
When James finally pulled back, fighting against the grip on his hair the whole way, Sirius looked like James had hit him with a stupefy, instead of a kiss.
“Well, that was something,” Sirius said. It sounded like he was speaking reflexively, and not really aware of his words. It struck James as a very Sirius way to react to unexpected public kisses, still needing to have some kind of comeback—it probably said something about James that he found it charming.
James maybe felt a little smug. “Definitely something,” he agreed.
“Sweet Salazar,” Black the Younger groaned. “Am I gonna have to put up with this a lot now?”
“Shut up, nobody asked you,” Sirius said, and that was definitely reflexive.
James swooped in and dropped a smacking kiss on Sirius’s cheek. On the other side of the table, Black the Younger made another noise even more hilariously horrified than the one he’d made when James first sat down.
“Happy Christmas,” James said, to Sirius, grinning.
Sirius stared at him for a moment, blinking and still a bit dazed, and was that? Yes, he was blushing, just a little. “It’s past Christmas,” he muttered.
“Happy New Year, then,” James said easily, and leaned in and planted another, loud kiss on the corner of Sirius’s mouth. He stayed in close, as he added, “And anyway, there’s twelve days of Christmas, didn’t you know?”
Sirius barked a low laugh. “Am I getting kisses for each of them?”
“You bet.”
Sirius laughed again, and James paused, bumping his nose against Sirius’s cheek as he gathered himself. He wet his lips, and added, “And every day of the new year, if you want ‘em.”
James was close enough to feel and hear the way that made Sirius suck in a breath.
“Yes,” Sirius said, hasty, “yes, absolutely.”
#
several months later
“I just want to state for the record,” Regulus says, all exasperated, from where he’s stuck between Sirius and the compartment door, “that I am not going to be the one to tell Mum and Dad.”
His head on James’s shoulder and his face tucked up under James’s jaw, Sirius makes some sort of vague, humming noise, that James feels as warm breath against his skin, and says, “Yes, you’ve said already.”
“Well, I wanted to remind you, then.”
“You have,” Lily says. She’s sitting on the other side of the compartment, right across from James, leaning against the window and watching the scenery fly by. Remus is stretched out along the seat with his head in her lap, and her left hand is idly combing through his hair; he’s been asleep almost the whole ride.
“You’ve said it twice,” Peter puts in helpfully. He’s on the floor with his back to the wall under the window, and he’s doing something odd with an Exploding Snap deck that James hasn’t bothered to investigate. “And that’s just since we boarded the train home.”
Regulus favours them all with his version of Sirius’s disapproving stare, especially Sirius. “I don’t want to be present when you tell them, either.”
Nobody looks at all bothered.
“Tough luck,” Sirius says, face still pressed against James’s neck.
Regulus’s eyes narrow into a glare. He pokes Sirius’s side, and Sirius huffs and squirms a little closer to James.
“There is no reason I need to be there when you tell them you’re running off to shack up in a Muggle flat with a Gryffindor,” Regulus snaps.
“Maybe I want an audience.”
“Maybe we want you to take pictures,” Lily says, and she’s grinning. When James tries to glare at her—because Sirius would probably think she needed to be glared at, if he could see her grinning, and just because he can’t be bothered to unplaster himself from James’s side doesn’t mean his wishes should be ignored—she just shrugs, unrepentant. “What? We’ve all got to get jobs this summer, we need something to entertain us.”
Regulus groans, and slumps back into the corner. “Ugh, you lot are awful,” he says. “How did I get stuck with you?”
“It’s what happens when your brother nicks the Head Boy’s heart,” James says, resting his chin on the top of Sirius’s head, and tightening his arm around Sirius’s waist. Just in case he was thinking about going anywhere. “You have to put up with his friends in the bargain.”
Covering his face with his hands, Regulus groans again. Peter’s shaking his head, Lily is snickering, and Remus is still asleep—but James can feel Sirius smiling, and Sirius’s hand tight in the front of his robes.
And anyway, he’s only spoken the truth.
“No, really, you’re the worst, Potter,” Regulus says.
James only laughs, because if Regulus meant it, Sirius would’ve kicked him by now. Sirius hasn’t.
Regulus and Lily start arguing about what actually qualifies as worst and how it applies to James, with Peter chiming in every now and then. James tunes them out. Under cover of all that, Sirius tightens his grip on James, and he whispers, “Reg’s wrong, you’re the best.”
“Yes, I am,” James says, but he’s really thinking, no, you are.