#excess of ocs oops
man this one’s long
“Okay, how about this. The beaters flank the three chasers, spiral around them— and the chasers can— do their own spiral across the field to dock and misdirect— and there’ll be like a spiral around a spiral, it’ll be like the moons around the planets around the sun—”
“James,” Sirius groaned, barely listening, “can’t you at least wait till you’re captain of the team?”
They were on their way from Transfiguration to Charms. Remus and Peter walked ahead, talking animatedly about plants or books or animals or whatever, and James beside him was deep in his impossible Quidditch fantasies. A group of girls walked past them, faux-discreetly throwing eyes at Sirius, and giggled amongst themselves when Sirius grinned and winked at them. He recognised the girl huddled in the centre of the group with the yellow butterfly hairslide. The next Hogsmeade weekend is coming up, he might as well ask one of them out.
Sirius didn’t know exactly when it became his defining reputation, but by fourth year he was definedly known as the bachelor of Gryffindor tower, ladies’ man, heartbreaker, whatever. James found it hilarious, Peter was probably a bit jealous, and Remus, well, Remus looked upon it as he looked upon most of the stupid things they did, with an eyeroll and a sarcastic jibe, familiar and annoying and strangely endearing like bread crumbs in the butter tub.
—
Sirius was beginning to suspect that Remus was more than long-sufferingly nonchalant about Sirius’ chain of girlfriends that came and went from beside him at the Gryffindor table.
“So Sirius, what are you doing this evening?” Anne asked cloyingly, leaning towards him, chin on a hand.
“Oh, nothing much,” Sirius said in his designated flirting voice, “what about you, baby bear?”
Remus faked choking on water from across. Good thing Anne didn’t notice with her eyes fixed on Sirius. He threw Remus a look, which caused him to snort and started coughing in earnest.
“Oh, what a coincidence, I’m not doing anything either.” The girl smiled, batted her lashes, “want to go venturing after dark?”
“Sounds amazing. I know quite a few hidden spots… want me to show you around?”
“But Sirius,” Remus interjected, sounding deliberately casual, “thought you said the four of us were going to look through the new Quidditch monthly tonight?”
Which was a ridiculous thing for him to suggest, because “Remus, you don’t even care about Quidditch.”
Remus narrowed his eyes, and tightened his lips just so.
“Ooh, do you guys do that every month?”
“Mhm. Quite the event, it usually is.” Remus said, polite and flat and bitingly.
“That’s so sweet of you. Sirius, what a good friend you are.”
“Course he is.” Remus pushed away his half-eaten plate and stood up, turning to Sirius with a hard look, “I need to go get something from the tower before heading to the library. Have a good evening, you two.”
“Yeh. Of course, mate. Catch you in a bit.”
“Bye, Remus!”
Staring at Remus’ retreating back, Sirius bit his cheeks and wondered. It’s been a while since he’s noticed the way Remus was shifty, restless, more flammable than usual around the girls. So perhaps…
“Hey, Anne, I’ve just remembered I needed to get something. Wanna just meet later outside the tower?”
-
“You’re jealous.”
“What the fuck are you on about?”
“You know what I’m on about.”
Remus didn’t go to the library. Of course he didn’t. Sirius found him tucked into bed aggressively flicking through the Quidditch ‘zine that arrived that morning— which he understood none of, obviously.
Remus scoffed, “You think I want a string of girls to fawn over me and fake interest in?”
“No!” Sirius laughed, “you’re jealous of them.”
“You are a preposterous piece of shit.”
“I’m right, aren’t I.”
Remus glared at him, before finally relenting. “Fine,” he said shortly.
Sirius grinned.
“I wouldn’t call it jealous.”
“Then what are you?”
“Just annoyed.”
“Why?”
“Why what? Why wouldn’t I be annoyed. You’re spending so little time with us.”
“With you.”
“Huh?”
“You meant I’m spending less time with you.”
Remus huffed, rolled his eyes. “Fine. With me. I miss you, ‘kay?” he admitted. And he would have been embarrassed of the admission had Sirius not immediately beamed at him. Remus smiled back carefully, and Sirius felt his heart do a little jump.
“But Moony! You know I’m not going anywhere! You’re stuck with me—” he tackled them both onto his bed, pushing down Remus’ skinny shoulders before starting to madly tickle his sides, “forever—”
Remus laughed breathlessly as he tried to shove him off, “yeah alright, alright! Gerroff me now!”
-
However, all that was forgotten the moment Peter and James barged in the door, breathless with laughter, shouting “Mate, you won’t believe what we did to Filch just now!”
“Is that why you missed dinner?” Remus muttered, “you tossers.”
“Oh no, it was so worth missing dinner for.”
“I don’t know, Prongs. Aren’t you hungry? I’m hungry.” Peter’s stomach grumbled on cue. He looked at them hopefully, “haven’t got any food, have you?”
Sirius shook his head, but Remus smirked, producing two wraps from his bag.
James cheered, “Oh Moony, you’re the best!”
“Now let’s see… what should I demand for this?”
“Name your price!”
“Hmm. What about the astronomy charts for a week?”
Peter snorted, “as if you’ve ever done yours.”
“Sure I did. In first year.”
-
Time disappeared in stretches of hours when it was just the Marauders bundled together in a room. Therefore, it was nearly two hours later that Remus suddenly sat up and kicked Sirius in the shin.
“Ow! What!”
“Sirius, didn’t you promise Anne to meet tonight?”
Oh.
“Who’s Anne now?” Peter asked, head hanging off the side of his bed, on which James was standing eulogising the greatness of the Czech national team.
“Sirius’ girlfriend?”
“Awh.” James paused in his act, jumped down from the bed, “have you got to go now?”
“Yeah… probably.” He glanced towards Remus, who was giving him an unreadable look. He remembered their conversation just earlier. “But… it’s already so late. She’s probably already gone.” Sirius shrugged.
“Huh. Alright then. No harm done, yeah?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
-
“I waited for you outside the Gryffindor dorm for so long. What do you take me for? A fucking doll at your beck and call?”
Sirius looked skywards. Only to be met with centuries-old wooden beams and vaulted ceilings. He had a sudden bizarre vision of the sons of Gryffindor himself walking these halls bracing themselves through petty teenage affairs.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Sirius winced. “Sorry Anne—”
“Oh, you are a right bastard aren’t you? Good day, Black, hope you have fun with whatever you did before me.” She spat, before she spun on her heels and marched away.
Sirius sighed. He probably deserved that. Oh well. All this was only fun till they started wanting to be around all the time, anyway.
—
“You don’t always need a girl by your side, you know?”
“What you do mean,” Sirius gasped, faux scandalised, “course I do, I’ve a reputation to uphold!”
“Hey, I’m serious.”
“No, I’m Sirius.”
Remus ignored him. “You shouldn’t be dating because you feel like it’s something you need to do.”
“Moons, that’s ridiculous. What even gave you that idea?”
—
Sirius felt all the butterbeer bouncing in this veins, and his grin was jaw-achingly wide as he watched James, two ridiculous pointy hats on his head, trying to drag every passer-by into the party that was growing louder and more crowded by the minute. Not even another rejection by Lily Evans could deter his birthday spirits.
However, Sirius was far from as robust a soul. He was just as second too slow ducking behind the record player, and Zoe had caught him by the wrist.
“Now where are you going? Don’t you want to hang out with me?”
“No, why don’t you leave me alone?”
“Sirius, what the fuck?”
“Merlin, it’s my best friend’s birthday, I’ve gotta be with him!”
“Why did you invite me, then, if you were going to ignore me all night long?”
“Well you wouldn’t have been happy either if I didn’t ask you to come, would you?”
The girl scoffed, “you’re not trying to blame me, are you?”
“No, of course not, I—” he ran a hand through his hair, and scanned the crowd. “Hey, Remus!” he called out, then turned back to the girl, “Look, Zoe, we’ll talk later, alright?” he said, without a shred of intention to continue this conversation.
He tried to put a hand to her arm, but she shirked him off. “Suit yourself then, Black.” she muttered in a dangerous undertone, then spun on her heels and disappeared through the crowd.
It was just what he needed to turn around and see Remus approaching, looking at him disapprovingly. “What was that about?”
“Oh, nevermind. Can we go get the cake now?”
-
The Friday afternoon after James’ party, Sirius sat by the lake alone waiting for Zoe to show up. He had with him a bunch of flowers, as a half-hearted gesture of apology. The moment he saw the expression she approached him with, Sirius groaned internally. Why does this happen every time?
“Yeah. So I’ve been thinking. We should probably stop seeing each other.”
“Oh, what happened?” Sirius said disinterestedly.
Zoe narrowed her eyes at him.
“Fair enough.”
She shook her head. “I can’t believe you, Black.”
“Yeah. Whatever. See you around.”
She huffed, and left without a response. Sirius took the long way back just to walk in a different direction.
-
When he was back at the castle gates, Sirius was still holding the flower bunch. He sighed, motioning to toss it away, but stopped himself at the last second. It would be such a waste, wouldn’t it? And in any case, why didn’t he buy flowers and chocolates for his friends? The thought filled him with excitement, and he raced to the common room with newly lifted spirits, thrusting the bunch of flowers at James the moment he found him.
“Here— these are for you!”
“Mrmgph,” James said through a faceful of flowers, “the date went well then?”
Sirius snorted. The oblivious bastard. “What date?”
“The one you had just n— OH. I see, alright.”
“I don’t know what you’re seeing, James, must be a smudge on the glasses. Anyway, I got these just for you!”
“Really,” James said, amused. “What suddenly gave you the idea?” His eyes twinkled teasingly behind the glasses.
“Oh well, I just thought we should. Why don’t we buy flowers and chocolates for each other, you know?”
And there started the legendary week during which their dorm overflowed with bunches of all kinds of flowers, as Sirius and James sought to one-up each other with their loving proclamations. By spillover, everyone started finding flowers in their bags and their clothes. The unfortunate ones with an allergy cursed the living daylights out of them. Remus quietly stashed away all the chocolate that came with.
Sirius had even managed to steal a small sprig of hyacinth into Remus’ hair behind his ear without him noticing, and he’d gone around for the greater part of a day with the purple flowers tucked in his curls. The sight had made him ridiculously bubbly.
-
A week later at breakfast, Remus was, without explanation, suddenly staring intensely at him.
“What are you looking at?”
“Don’t look away.”
“Ooh, staring contest?” Peter said from beside them, between mouthfuls of food.
“Huh I see. You’re on, Moony.” Staring back into Remus’ eyes with as much concentration.
Though moments later, Remus snapped his finger, Sirius blinked, and a flower crown appeared on his head, of primroses and daisies and soft pink roses.
James laughed delightedly, “you totally had that coming, Pads.”
Remus smirked satisfiedly. Sirius tried to lift the crown off his head, but the curling strands furled right back onto his hair. Well that’s impressive.
“It won’t come off till dinner.”
“Good thing I pull it off, then.”
“Yeah, you sort of do.” Remus said, smile turning soft.
-
It was just his luck that one of the letters from his mother arrived for him in Hogsmeade, on his date, of all times and places. He couldn’t help the dark mood that followed him like a raincloud on steroids all afternoon, and try as he might, he simply couldn’t muster up the energy to pay attention to the girl beside him.
He couldn’t decide if it was a blessing or a curse that she’d clocked why.
“I could help you, Sirius.”
“Greta, no really, you don’t need to worry about it.”
“You should talk about it with someone else, shouldn’t you? And I could be there for you, just let me know what’s going on.”
“I mean, if this your idea of a good conversation topic for emotional bonding—” Greta looked affronted, “it’s not, alright? I’m not going to tell you about my family.”
“I’m only trying to be considerate! And don’t you shout about your family all time time?”
“Well yeah. But what happens between my parents and brother stays between us.”
“So it’s about your brother— are you fighting?” She creased her brows and put on a concerned voice.
“Can we, maybe not?”
“Why are you being so stubborn about this—”
“I don’t want it going around in the gossip mill, alright?” Sirius almost shouted.
Greta’s face contorted, froze in a shocked grimace. “Is that all you think of me?”
“Oh schlizers.” Sirius ran a hand over his face, “I didn’t mean to say that.”
“But you thought it?”
“No, I—”
Sirius stopped at her look. She bit her lips, expression stony and on the verge of tears as well. She glowered at him for a long moment, then began:
“I thought you wanted something with me, Sirius Black. I thought we were onto something here. And what did you think? That I came from the gossip and will be to the gossip? God I can’t believe—”
“Hey, wait a second. When did we ever say we were going to be more? It’s you who kept pushing—”
“What did you want then? Snogging at the back of greenhouses and tossing the girl out once you get bored? Should you have wanted us to sign a contract on it to say I was okay with it?”
“Look, I don’t know where you’re dragging in all that from—”
“Black. No, I’m not going to stand this. If you could take one moment to try and be less selfish—”
-
The thought stuck grimy in his mind long after Sirius had stormed off. But he wasn’t selfish, inconsiderate, was he? He wasn’t a bad person and friend, was he? As though to prove himself a point, he took a long detour all the way to the kitchens to pick up a chocolate fudge cake, a lemon meringue pie and a whole basket of overbaked naans.
—
“Sirius Black!”
Sirius sighed, paused in his steps, and turned around down the corridor. “What is it?”
“I need to talk to you, now.”
“Yeah, sorry Kat, not now, alright?”
“Yeah well. You’ve been saying that for a week.”
“I am genuinely sorry. Look I just, I’ve got somewhere to be right now.” It was the full moon that night, and the Marauders stuck around Moony, doing whatever they could, before and after the moon every month. It was unnegotiable. They’d figured out what their animagus forms were going to be just after new year’s, and he couldn’t wait until they were finally able to actually accompany him.
Kat was still glaring at him. “Tomorrow then.”
“Yeah, can’t do that either.”
“Why?”
“Can’t really tell you.”
“I just want to talk to you, what’s so hard about making time.”
Sirius was starting to get annoyed. “Look, if you want something else, why don’t you go find someone else?”
-
The moment Sirius made it through their door, Remus’ head snapped to him, “what’s up with you now?”
“Nothing! Kitchen mission has been successful—”
“No, no.” Remus pointed a finger at him, “you reek of psychological distress.”
“Oh right. Fine.” Sirius never ceased to be absolutely awestruck by the wolf peeking through, “Well, um. Another one down.”
Remus snorted. “Not again, you.”
“Unfortunately, yeah.”
“What’s it this time?”
“She thinks I didn’t care about her feelings.”
“Classic. Don’t it make you wonder if it just might be true?”
“What can I say? Everybody’s looking for sympathy but nobody’s ready to give them,” Sirius intoned dramatically, “I just want love, Moony! Is that too much to ask for?”
“I told you to stop stealing James’ crappy romance novels.”
“Hey— I most certainly did not—”
—
“Do you want to have sex?” Elena asked him under her breath, the two of them having broken apart for air behind one of hidden alcoves.
“Why, do you?” Sirius asked, a little startled and trying not to show it.
“Yeah. You’re so handsome.”
“Oh I know love,” Sirius smirked, and tried to distract them by pulling her back into the kiss.
But she caught his hands, “And so gentlemanly too. You never asked for more, never pushed us to do anything else. But here—” she left his hands at his side, and started reaching for the buttons of her blouse.
Sirius was stunned. He didn’t know what to say or do. Having taken his widened eyes as a sign of encouragement. She continued undoing the buttons until the shirt was hanging open between them. She wore only a thin cotton bra underneath. He could see the shape of her nipples.
“Do you want to—” Elena took both his hands in hers, and drew them to her chest.
Sirius had completely frozen, even when she placed her hands over his and squeezed a little. Her flesh was too warm, too full under his hands, even through the material. Some deep-seated voice in his mind told him that he was feeling full-bodiedly uncomfortable.
“Or do you… just not want to.” Elena said questioningly.
“I—” Sirius tried to push past the tightness in his throat.
Looking at him for a couple more long moments, her eyes widened a little, as she appeared to clock something in her head. “Hmm.”
She let his hands fall, and started doing the buttons of her shirt back up again.
And finally having found his voice, Sirius felt such a devastating wave of embarrassment wash over him. Godric, what was wrong with him? What in hell possessed him to freeze up? “I’m sorry, I just—”
“Oh, Sirius, dear, don’t worry.”
“I don’t know why—”
“Really, it’s okay!” She smiled to reassure him. It looked genuine.
“Do you want to kiss again?”
“Nah, we’re alright.” she took his hands in hers and squeezed. “I did think you seemed to be more interested in the sneaking around than the snogging, in general, anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Sirius muttered.
She shrugged, lips twitching with a smile.
As they fell quiet. Sirius frowned and looked away.
“I think,” he said after a few moments, “maybe we should, um.”
“Break up?”
Sirius turned to face her, realising that she’d been looking at him carefully this whole while. “Sure.”
“Or did you think there’s nothing to break up if we weren’t really in a relationship in the first place?”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I just meant we’ll— stop doing, this. Sorry.”
“Oh no, don’t worry. I’ll just have to go after some other fish. Tianze seems like a bright boy, good looking too, no?”
“Oh yeah,” Sirius nodded enthusiastically. “Great bone structure, killer of a jawline. Good height as well.”
She smiled at him mysteriously.
“What?”
“You’re so lovely, Sirius.” She pecked him lightly on the cheeks, “whoever you find will be so lucky to have you.”
-
All the way back to the Gryffindor tower, Sirius couldn’t shake off the overwhelming wrongness he felt under his own skin. He replayed again and again the few moments, wondering, wondering what the hell was broken inside him. What did it mean, what was he going to do.
When he threw open the dorm door to the three boys playing gobstone on the floor in their pyjamas, they all looked up at him in surprise.
“Sirius! I thought you were hanging out with that Ravenclaw girl.”
Remus rolled his eyes, “Elena’s got a name, Prongs.”
“Which one is she again?” Peter said distractedly, “long white hair, brown eyes?”
“I think so. Really smart too.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Anyway, Pads, what happened?”
“Nothing!” He shrugged, flopping onto the floor and upsetting the game, “thought it’s a Marauders night tonight— let’s go do something.”
“Can we get food? I’m famished.”
“We could sneak into the kitchens and make pancakes!”
“Oh Merlin, yes! Wait, I’ve got a recipe somewhere too!”
Sirius grinned. He knew his friends would help take things off his mind. “Brilliant— let’s go now!”
-
Midnight found Sirius laughing his stomach into stitches as they made a riot of the kitchens, covering every surface with flour. Remus was purposefully dribbling the batter all over the place, making a horrific mess of the pancakes on the stove, which was sending Peter into an absolute frenzy because “REMUS that’s my MOTHER’s recipe!” and “can’t you make them circular?”
“Pete, it’s pancakes, they’re supposed to be fucked up! And hey— we’ll clean it up when we leave, don’t you worry about the house elves!”
The whole thing was sending Sirius into fits of laughter, for no apparent reason. His hands shook as he continued trying to make his pancake the shape of a penis.
Remus looked over and shook his head, “you are so fucking dumb.”
And then James hit him on the back of the head with a ball of cookie dough, causing them to descend into absolute chaos, until all four were covered with mysterious mixtures from head to toe. As they lunged and grabbed at each other to make even more of a mess, Sirius wondered why he would ever want for anyone else.
-
