Chapter Text
~Tuseday~
James pokes his fried egg with the end of his fork, watching the yoke spill out like a bustling river onto the white ceramic plate. His head is resting on his hand and his eyes are burning a hole in the kitchen table. He didn’t dare look anywhere else, because that would mean he’d have to watch Jenna make her morning Chai Tea with her blonde ponytails whipping around with every movement she made. James didn’t have anything against Jenna per se, it’s just that she seemed adamant about being a replacement mother that rubbed him the wrong way. Jenna would never be James’s mother and he wished she’d get that through her thick skull.
There were many reasons why Jenna would never be James’s mother. The most obvious reason was that Jenna was a white thirty-something-year-old who liked to wear patterned leggings and James was a brown sixteen years old that lived in sweatshirts and ripped jeans. Jenna raved about how Fleamont ‘put her on’ Chai Tea and how amazing the ‘exotic’ flavors of Makhani were, meanwhile James had been raised on Indian food. They were simply too different to be mother and son. Another (very important) reason why Jenna would never be James’s mother is that James already has a mother. She just happens to be dead.
That’s how James got into this whole mess in the first place. His mother died, his ever-absent doctor of a father took him in, he met his white stepmother for the very first time, he took a month-long ‘adjustment’ period where all he did was lock himself in his new bedroom, and now he’s starting school in the middle of October. And somewhere in between his mother dying and the month-long ‘adjustment’ period, James had got caught shoplifting. It wasn’t his first time shoplifting or even his first time getting caught lifting, but it was his first time the police actually took it seriously. They made his dad pick him up from the station and now James had to start going to some bullshit shoplifting AA meetings on Saturday mornings.
“Wanna cup of Chai, James?” Jenna asks, her voice overly sweet and friendly. It made James sick to his stomach. He was already having a hard time finishing his breakfast; eggs, and toast instead of chutney and roti, but now there was no chance of him finishing it.
“No thanks”, James says quietly.
“Really? I’ve been getting better at making it. Did I tell you that I’ve been putting almond milk in mine instead of whole milk? It doesn’t even taste different but the calories are sure different”. Jenna takes a sip out of a green ceramic mug and smiles at James.
“That’s nice Jenna”, James says in a way that made it obvious it was anything but nice.
Jenna frowns, her bright blue eyes flickering with sadness for a second. “Your father will be down to drive you to school soon”. She picks up a magazine from the kitchen counter and tucks it under her arm. It’s probably one of her exercise magazines. Jenna loves cardio and yoga. “Are you excited to start school?”
James looks up at her and gives her a dry look. “Ecstatic”.
James wasn’t thrilled to be starting a new school in the middle of October on a Tuesday morning. He didn’t know anybody there and wasn’t keen on being the social butterfly that he once was. Back in California, James had been quite popular. He played soccer for his high school and had a sturdy group of friends that were there for him no matter what. James was devastated to lose not only his mother but his familiar life and close friends from Cali. Maybe if he got around to it, he’d make a few friends here and Finnish junior and senior year smoothly before moving back to California where he belonged.
Jenna’s frown deepens, but she doesn’t say anything back. She walks out of the room with her magazine and a mug of tea in hand. Fifteen minutes later James’s dad walks down the stairs dressed in his shrubs and jangling keys in his hand.
“Hi, James. Are you ready for school?” He asks.
James shrugs before getting up from the table. He grabs the toast on his plate and puts the plate in the sink. “As ready as I’ll ever be”, he says stiffly. It was how he said anything these days, no emotion and no expression.
Fleamont doesn’t seem to notice or care. He offers James a small smile, showcasing the wrinkles on his forehead. “That’s my boy”.
James feels himself heat up. How dare his father call James ‘his boy’ when it took James’s mom’s death for James to see his father for the first time in three years? How dare he call James ‘his boy’ when all he sent were pre-printed birthday cards and twenty-dollar bills for years? James was nobody except his mother’s boy. He felt his tongue coil and he had to bite his gums to prevent himself from pointing out his father’s hypocrisy. Instead, he nods his head and heads out to the garage where the car was.
Fleamont drives a black BMW with leather seats that had next to no wrinkles on them. It contrasted greatly from the worn-out minivan his mother drove, the cloth seats tattered from all the out of state games they drove to and stains from fast food sodas spilled. James threw his book bag into the car first before sliding into the passenger seat of the flashy car, folding his arms and staring out the window. He sighs loudly as his father revs the engine up and he stares out the window the entire drive to his new school.
Fleamont pulls into the parking lot of Hogwarts Highschool, narrowly dodging a handful of kids playing basketball in the parking lot. The second the car parks, James bolts out of the car, grabbing his bag and shutting the car door promptly. He didn’t look back to see what his father’s reaction might be and truthfully he didn’t care. That’s what he got for ignoring James since the divorce.
James watches the students milling about the schoolyard carefully, watching what doors they enter and exit. He had been so preoccupied leaving the car that he forgot that he had no idea where he was going. His father had a paper copy of the map of the school in the car, but James had been so angry he forgot to ask for it. He notices a set of large doors that students are walking into and picks up speed, walking towards what he assumes is the front door.
James walks into the school and finds himself in the middle of a hallway instead of in front of the offices as he thought there would be. Maybe those doors weren’t the front doors after all.
He stumbles through the hallway and looks around for a friendly face. The hallway was filled with students clutching books, some hurrying along to their classes and some chatting with friends while leaning against lockers. James spots a short plump kid with a mousy face and longish-hair fumbling around at his locker and decides he looks nice enough. He approaches the kid and smiles at him.
“Hi, could you tell me where the main offices are?” He asks in the most friendly voice he can conjure.
The kid looks at him with a surprised expression, almost like he was shocked anyone would talk to him. “Yeah, of course. I actually have to stop by the offices anyway, so you can just follow me”. He puts away a book before closing his locker shut.
“Thanks”, James says, mustering a small smile. Even if he wasn’t planning on being prom king, it might be good to make some friends.
The boy smiles back at him as they make their way down the crowded hallway. “No problem. I’m Peter, by the way”.
“I’m James”. They make a left turn into a narrower hall with blue and bronze tiles. The other hall had grey tiles and James briefly wonders what the school colors were exactly. They walk into another hall, this one much bigger and with yellow and black tiles. This school sure had one weird color scheme.
“Okay, we’re here”, Peter says as they approach a door propped open with a rock.
The office was a neutral cream color with tassel carpets and two large oak desks in the center of the room. There were multiple doors, presumably leading into other offices, and uncomfortable-looking chairs lining against the walls. Two women sat at the front desks, one frail and old and the other young but mean-looking. Peter walks up to the mean-looking one and starts talking about something, putting a stack of papers on her desk. James looks at the other frail lady and notices the ‘Scheduling Assistance’ plaque laying on her desk. He walks up to her and smiles.
“Hi. My name is James Potter and it’s my first day of school here. I don’t have a schedule yet and was wondering where I could go to get one”. He says it quickly, his words all blurring into each other.
The frail woman nods her head and smiles. “Oh yes, James Potter. You’re father was in here last week submitting some paperwork. Let’s see… I’ve got your schedule right over here”. She picks a yellow piece of paper up and hands it to him. “If you need help finding your first class, Peter can show you around”.
“Peter?” James asks, scrunching his eyebrows.
The frail woman nods and points to Peter, who was frantically waving a stack of paper in the air, looking distraught. Oh right. Peter.
“He looks a bit… busy right now. How about you wait outside the office for a few minutes and I’ll tell him to take you to your next class after he’s sorted his business out”.
James nods his head appreciatively. “Alright, thank you”
Once outside the room, James leans against the brick wall and looks at his schedule. He’s got Honors English first period, Precalc second period, Chemistry third period, lunch fourth period, Health fifth period, and History Honors during sixth period. It seemed manageable. He starts to look at his locker combination when a loud thud distracted him.
James looks up from his schedule to find the origin of the noise and sees a gangly boy with sandy colored hair lying in the middle of the hall with numerous books splattered around him. A regal-looking boy with long black hair and a tight leather jacket stares down at the boy with a twisted smile.
“Better watch where you’re going next time”, leather jacket boy sneers. Another boy with a letterman jacket laughs heartily, even though in James’s opinion there was nothing funny going on.
The boy on the floor glares at the leather jacket boy. He stands up without picking any of his books up, revealing his impressive height, and the sleeves of his red flannel hitch slightly before he pushes his sleeves down promptly. Even though his arms had been exposed for only a second, James still managed to spot some pasty white scarring on his forearms. James makes a mental note of it before adverting his attention back to the altercation. “Better watch it, Black. I’m not in the mood to deal with your bullshit today”.
Leather jacket boy--Black-- cocks an eyebrow. A crowd begins to form around the pair and James knows all too well where this is going. “Is that a threat, Lupin? I’ll beat your skinny ass in thirty seconds flat, you little nerd”.
Lupin laughs vehemently. “Fuck off Black. You can’t fight for shit. Remember last time? I could give you a refresher?” Black doesn’t respond, he just stares at Lupin blankly. James watches half-amused, half bored. Either Peter needed to come out of that office and show him to class or those boys needed to throw some punches.
“That’s what I thought. I’m going to class”, Lupin says, bored. He picks up his books and pushes his way through the crowd, not paying anyone any attention.
Black turns his head and scoffs. “Can you believe that kid?” He asks the boy in the letterman jacket. Letterman jacket kid rolls his eyes and shrugs.
“For a nerd, he’s mouthy as fuck”, Lettermen says. He gives a sympathetic look towards Black and pays him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’ll get him back later. C’mon. Can’t be late for class, or else coach will kick us off the team”.
The two boys walk down the hallway and a few girls that had been in the crowd of onlookers follow them, exchanging gleeful looks with each other and giggling.
Right after the two boys depart, Peter strolls out of the office holding a different stack of papers. He turns and smiles at James.
“Hi James, I’m walking you to your first class. What do you have?”
James looks down at his schedule. “English 11 with McGonagall”.
Peter nods his head and starts walking, motioning for James to follow him. “Oh your one of McGonagall’s morning classes, those are all her smart kids. She loves you guys. I’ve got her in the afternoon with all the other slower kids. She likes us well enough, but she’s always raving about her morning kids.”
James nods his head, not knowing how to respond to that.
“She’s a good teacher though. I’m sure you’ll like her class. Anyways, I know your new here so if you need somebody to sit with at lunch, feel free to pull up a chair. I sit with the Yearbook kids and we’d be happy to have you eat lunch with us.” He pauses as they walk up a flight of stairs before picking right back up. “Oh yeah, there’s also this party this Friday at Brady’s house. You should definitely go. The entire Yearbook club is going. It’s going to be great. It’ll be great to make new friends”.
James nods along to everything Peter says. Damn that kid could talk. By the time they made it to the English class, James felt like his ear was going to fall off. He thanked Peter with the nicest smile he could muster before sliding into the classroom and shutting the door quickly.
The class hadn’t started yet, much to James’s delight. He takes an open seat in the back of the class and opens his bookbag, taking out a notebook and pencil while waiting for the class to begin. So far nobody was sending James odd looks. James has never transferred into a new school in the middle of the year, he grew up in the same Californian town his whole life, but he’s seen movies where the new kid gets picked on the first day. So far everybody seems to be preoccupied talking to their own friends or catching up on work for their next classes to bother James.
The flannel kid--Lupin-- is in this class, sitting a few desks down in the corner of the classroom, deep in conversation with a short girl with red hair. The girl rolls her eyes at whatever he’s saying before slapping him on the shoulder and throwing her head back to laugh. James studies the red-head, taking note of every detail of her. Her hair is a dark smooth auburn and flows down past her collar bones in soft waves like the ocean at low tide crashing into the shore. He can’t see them very well from where he’s sitting, but he can make out misty green eyes and wonder how bright they are up close. Her emerald eyes match the tight green and yellow striped shirt she’s wearing and her legs bounce up and down, pattering against the classroom floor. James doesn’t know exactly what it is about this girl, but he’s transfixed almost like she cast a spell on him. He finds himself wanting to know more about her; her name, where she lives, what’s her family like, her sense of humor, who she hangs out with. Everything.
“Alright, settle down now!” A sharp, shrill voice calls out. James jumps in his seat a bit, the voice snapping him out of his transfixion. He looks at the front of the classroom and sees a woman who appears to be somewhere in her forties with a tight bun of light hair. She catches James’s eye and nods at him.
“Good morning class. Before we get started today, I’d like to introduce you all to somebody. We’ve got a new student today, Mr.Potter. Would you like to introduce yourself or would you like me to?”
James shrugs, feeling all the attention in the class shift to him. James didn’t exactly mind the attention, he was used to it being an ex-soccer star and a part of the popular kids at his old school. Some people who used to know James may even say he liked attention. But today, James didn’t feel like talking too much or giving a charming smile. He very much felt like shrinking in his seat and running off back to California as soon as the class was over. But James couldn’t do that and he knew it was in his best interest to smile and introduce himself, he’d be more likely to make friends that way.
“Hi, I’m James”, he says in what he hopes is a friendly voice. A few heads in the class nod and smile at him.
“Where are you from, James?” The teacher, McGonagall, asks politely.
“Sunesville, California”, James says.
“I presume it’s very sunny there?” McGonagall asks with a small smile.
James nods his head slowly. “Yep, it’s in the name”. James misses the sunshine, it’s always raining in Portland and when it’s not, the sun hides behind a layer of grey clouds. James used to be very outdoorsy, but since he moved to Portland a month ago he’s locked himself in his new bedroom the entire month. Some days he didn’t even bother to open a window to smell the fresh air. The air didn’t have the same sweet tangy fragrance that the air in California had, it was crisp and smelt vaguely of smoke and suburban blues.
“I can see, hopefully, you’ll get used to the lack of sunshine around here. Thank you for telling us about yourself, Mr.Potter. If you don’t mind, I’d like to tell you a little bit about myself now. I’m Ms.McGonagall, the head of the English Department here at Hogwarts High. I’ve taught here for twenty years now, teaching honors classes in the morning and standard classes in the afternoon. I’m very glad to have you here. Before we get started with class, I must ask if you are familiar with the book ‘The Outsiders?' It’s what our last few lessons have been about and I wouldn’t want to have you falling behind”.
“I’ve read ‘The Outsiders” before, I read it last year”, James says, remembering his old school.
Sophomore year had been the best year of his life, acing all his classes, hitting the soccer field, and still having time to hang out with the boys. He’d come home to his mom and she’d whip up dinner and they’d chat all evening long about their days. He pushes the memories of his Sophomore year out of his head. That was then and this is now.
McGonagall nods and smiles fondly at him. “Very well, Mr.Potter. With that settled, let’s do attendance. Si-”
She never did get to call out the first because at that very moment the classroom door opened and two boys entered the classroom. James quickly identified them as Black and Letterman.
“You’re late”, McGonagall says sharply as the boys walk towards their seats.
“We know”, Black says dryly. He tucks his book bag under his desk and folds his hands together. “Practice”.
McGonagall raises an eyebrow at the boys and folds her arms. “I thought morning practice was only on Tuesdays and Thursdays? I’ll have to talk to Couch Hooch about this.” Black winces and slumps in his seat but Letterman rolls his eyes and scoffs. “If football is that important to the two of you, maybe you should consider dropping this class. Honors classes are suitable for honors students and require being on time and present for most- if not all- classes. Maybe you two should consider transferring to Standard English. Consider this a warning.”
McGonagall clears her throat and picks up a piece of paper off from her desk. “Sirius Black”.
Black stirs in his seat. “Here”, he says bitterly. McGonagall clicks her tongue and checks his name on the paper.
So that was his name? Sirius Black. James smiles to himself, thinking about how pretentious that name sounds. It sounded aristocratic, like some inbred French prince's name. James taps his foot against the floor and listens closely to the names being called, trying to match names to faces. He perks up when the redhead girl raises her hand to ‘Lily Evans’. Lily was a pretty name, it reminds James of the lilies that grew in his mom’s garden in California.
James learns that Letterman’s name is Brady and thinks it’s rather fitting. Brady was such a basic white fuck-boy name. James knew a Brady back in Sunesville. He was a bully and a player. Maybe the name Brady was cursed and if you name your child that they’d automatically turn out to be a douche.
James also learned that Lupin was flannel boy’s last name and that his first name is Remus, just like the Roman story. Remus sort of looked like he was raised by wolves, too. His flannel hung loosely around him and his jeans were tattered and stained. James didn’t know if his shabby clothing was due to lack of funds or if he simply liked the raggedy hipster look. Maybe he was going for a grungey aesthetic.
Class was dismissed after an hour and James found the rest of his classes to be rather uneventful. Precalc was borning and muddled, just like every math class James has ever taken in his high school career. The only thing interesting about Precalc was that Lily Evans was in his class, but she sat in the back next to Remus Lupin like in English, so James didn’t have an opportunity to talk to her or anything. Chemistry was confusing and James got paired up with a girl named Mary McDonald for the lab they were doing. Lunch was fine. James sat with Peter and his group of energetic Yearbook kids, not saying much but nodding at all the right times. Health passed in a blur of worksheets and textbook reading but at least James was allowed to listen to music in class. History was the most boring of all his classes. Both Sirius, Brady, Remus, and Lily were in his class. It was ironic that he shared his first and last classes with them.
James rode the bus home and put his earbuds in as soon as he found a seat near the front. He turned on a playlist called ‘Soft Vibes’ by a listener named ‘cherry_3_vans’ and thought briefly of “The Outsiders”. He stared out the window watching red-bricked buildings and red leaves pass and muddle into a brown blur. His first day wasn’t bad, but it was far from good.
Jenna makes baked chicken breasts and powder mashed potatoes for dinner. She also made some odd quiche dish, but James didn’t feel like eating anything remotely healthy. He had an entire stash of candy under his bed, all stolen and waiting to be consumed after dinner. James answers questions about his first day with one-worded answers and shaking or nodding his head. When he didn’t want to answer a question at all he’d shove a large bite of bland chicken in his mouth. Eventually, Jenna and Fleamont got tired of playing 21-questions and let him eat in silence. James saw them exchange worried glances every now and then, and he secretly felt a bit accomplished. Good, be worried about me, he thought bitterly.
When he clears his plate of chicken and mash potatoes, he walks to the sink and rinsess his plate out before putting it in the dishwasher. He grabs his phone from the table and gives his father one last look before heading up for the night.
“Dad?”
Fleamont looks up quickly, giving his son full attention. “Yes, James”, he says eagerly.
“There’s a… gathering going on this Friday. I was wondering if I could go”, James says nonchalantly. He tries to look bored like it didn’t matter if he went to this ‘gathering’ or not. In a way, James didn’t care. He was only going because Peter had begged him to attend and James didn’t want to get on Peter’s bad side, he was James’s only friend right now.
Fleamont and Jenna look at each other, wordlessly communicating. Jenna nods her head and smiles and Fleamont and James feels sick. He had asked his father, not Jenna.
“Of course, James. Where is the gathering? Who invited you? Do you need a ride?” Fleamont asks, the questions firing out rampantly.
“A kid name Peter invited me. He’s going to give me a ride”, he says, purposely avoiding the first question. He didn’t know where the gathering was. Fleamont didn’t seem to notice the unanswered question, though, and smiles at James.
“Alright, I’m glad you… uh… getting out, making friends”.
James shrugs in response. “Sure”, he says. He turns around and leaves the kitchen, walking up the rounded staircase and entering his room. He closes the door with a small slam and locks it promptly before sliding a purple box underneath his bed out. He opens the box and stiffens at the sight of his collection. Glasses, hairpins, pocket knives, rings, golfballs, and candy. James picks a bag of Sour Patch Kids out and slides the box back under his bed, opening the bag and picking a few pieces out to eat. He pops a candy in his mouth and lets the sour candy sting his tongue. He smiles to himself, stolen candy always tastes better than ones bought.
~Wednesday~
Sirius wakes up to the sound of Walburga and Orion fighting, again. Judging by the volume of their voices, they were most likely in the study room next to Sirius’s bedroom. Sighing, Sirius throws on a pair of jeans and his leather jacket before making his way downstairs. The smell of bacon and pancakes rang heavy in the air, letting Sirius know that Kreacher, the family chef, had already made breakfast.
Regulus was already up and ready, sitting at the dining room table, picking at some bacon and scrolling on his phone. Sirius takes a seat across from Regulus and grabs a plate of his own.
“Mom and dad at it again?” Regulus asks, not bothering to look up from his phone.
Sirius laughs. “You know it.”
They were always at it. Not a second went by at the Black household without somebody yelling at somebody. Most days it was Walburga yelling at Orion, drunk, and accusing him of being a terrible husband. Other days she opted to yell at Sirius for trivial matters. “Cut your hair boy.” “Why don’t you ever wear your Letterman. Your bother wears his.” “Ms. Crouch has a lovely daughter and I think you too might get along if you gave it a shot”. She hardly ever got violent, but when she did it was extreme. Sirius got the brunt of her outbursts, he adorned a fleshy scar on his upper back from when she threw a vase at him and it shattered against his skin. Sirius counted down the days he had left with his mother. His Uncle Alfred had given him a small sum of money that he could access when he turned eighteen. Only one more year...
“Think mom’s drunk”, Regulus says while frowning. He puts his phone down and sighs. “I heard them fighting about it last night… dad wants mom to go to rehab.”
Sirius takes a bite of bacon, mulling over this new piece of information. Walburga Black was an alcoholic, that was for sure. She drank breakfast, lunch, and dinner without a fail. But Sirius never considered the possibility of her going to rehab. People didn’t go to rehab unless they were drinking themselves to death or unless they were roaming around the streets panhandling for money. Surely Walburga wasn’t that kind of alcoholic.
“Is that what they’re arguing about?”
Regulus sighs and nods. “That and the affair”.
Oh yes, the affair. Three months ago, Walburga while in a drunken stupor walked in on Orion and a young woman getting it on in the guest bedroom. Orion hadn’t stopped seeing the woman and Walburga’s drinking got even heavier since then, not that it hadn’t been heavy before. Things were just lovely and chipper in the Black household.
“Of course”, Sirius says, like it’s nothing. It really wasn't anymore. Sirius was used to his family being a dysfunctional hell-hole with Lucifer for parents. “I’m getting out of here. Want a ride to school, Brady’s driving today?”
Regulus shakes his head much to Sirius’s surprise. Regulus was only fifteen and just got his permit. Most days he got a ride to school from Sirius or Brady, as he couldn’t drive. Was he planning on taking the bus to school? Sirius had never taken the bus before. He’s been driving ever since the day he turned sixteen and before that, Kreacher would drive him. Walburga says busses are for those who are too lazy to get jobs to save for cars and that none of her kids should ride such germ-ridden vehicles.
“Nah, did you check the group chat? The boys from the team are gonna give me a ride today. Thanks, though”, Regulus says.
Sirius and Regulus were some sorts of a legend at Hogwarts High. They were handsome, wealthy, and both played on the football team, leaving girls drooling puddles. While Regulus was more of a typical jock, wearing his letterman jacket around and traveling in packs of other jocks, Sirius preferred to adorn a leather jacket and ride a motorcycle. Good-looking, athletic, mysterious, and a bad-boy, Sirius was all a teenaged girl could ask for. He was straight from a young adult novel… the only issue was he wasn’t straight.
Sirius Black has known he was gay since he was fourteen years old. It was the summer between middle and high school and Sirius spent the majority of his time out in Remus Lupin’s backyard. Believe it or not, they used to be close in middle school. He would listen to Remus ramble about whatever book he was reading at the moment and watch him pull a cigarette between his chapped lips, inhaling and exhaling smoke for hours. Being around Remus made his stomach fill up with butterflies and his tongue turn to jelly, not knowing what to say next. His palms would sweat and he’d rub them against the clumps of grass growing in the grown. Sirius was hooked.
It was only when Remus started talking about girls that Sirius realized he was gay. The way Remus described girls he was interested in was the same way Sirius felt about Remus. He struggled to come to terms with his sexuality. Orion and Walburga were strict Christians and would throw Sirius out the second they found out about his sexuality. The entire family had disowned Uncle Alfred when he came out as gay and Andromeda when they found out she was bisexual. Sirius was not planning on being next. Living at Grimuald was like living in hell, but it was a roof over his head and food to eat.
So Sirius did what at the time felt very logical. He stopped going by Remus’s house and signed up for the manliest, straightest sport he could think of, the second high school started. He got on the football team and ignored every text Remus sent him and the worried glances he shot in between classes in the hallways. He didn’t even stop Brady from making snide remarks about Remus in the locker rooms. Remus was a prime target for dicks like Brady to pick on. He was awkward-looking, quiet, poor, and studious. Any one of those characteristics would make you a contender for being bullied, but combine them all together and you were massively screwed.
The fight happened in the middle of freshman year. Remus had stopped reaching out to Sirius by then and befriended some other kids with too-big jeans and skateboards along with a bookish but fiery girl named Lily Evans. Brady had been picking on Remus that day, shoving him in the halls and saying nasty things to him. Remus ignored like he always did and continued on, not even looking in Sirius’s direction. Sirius was glad. He hated it when Brady picked on Remus, it was bad enough he ghosted Remus without explanation, and watching his ex-friend get bullied made him feel even worse. But Sirius never stood up to Brady, for more reasons than one. Sometimes Sirius felt like Brady owned him.
So when Brady knocked Remus’s lunch tray out of his hands during lunch and said, ‘I think I just ruined his only meal for the day, don’t you think Sirius?’, Sirius nodded and forced a laugh. He didn’t feel bad when Remus’s fist collided with his jaw, in fact, it felt good. Sirius knew he deserved it and relished with every blow. The more pain he felt, the less guilty he felt. He didn’t fight back much and truthfully he couldn’t have even if he wanted to. Sirius Black was not a fighter. He covered up his black eye with a concealer for a week.
“I didn’t check. I slept in a bit”, Sirius says. “Why is there anything going on?”
Regulus shakes his head. “No, not anything important. They’re just talking about Brady’s party. Coach said no partying before the game next week, so they’re trying to figure out how to make sure Coach doesn’t find out. Tucker thinks if we all drink enough Gatorade, we won’t get hungover”.
Sirius was not looking forward to Brady’s party. Brady always got drunk at parties and when Brady got drunk he got aggressive. Sober Brady was enough to deal with already, always wanting to know where Sirius was, always telling Sirius what to do and what to post and who to hang out with. Drunk Brady was even worse, he constantly tried to get Sirius to slip away from the party but then later accuse Sirius of being too risky. He yelled and cursed. He was scary.
“I don’t know why he’s throwing a party a week before the game”, Sirius says, annoyed. His phone flashes a bright light, alerting Sirius to a new text message. It was from Brady.
Brady: here. be out in five or else im leaving
Sirius sighs and puts his phone away in his back pocket. “Gotta go, Reg. Brady’s here”. He stands up and grabs his book bag from the corner of the room. Regulus waves him off and returns back to his own phone. “See you later”.
Brady honks his car as Sirius flies out the front door. Sirius runs faster towards the car, suddenly feeling queasy. Brady usually honked his car when Sirius was late and he was mad. Sirius opened the passenger seat door and took a seat next to Brady, putting his bag down by his feet.
“Hi, Brady”, Sirius says softly.
Brady puts the car into drive. “Hi, Sirius”, he says. “Get a good night’s sleep?”
Sirius feels his nerves calm. Brady wasn’t mad. “It was okay, what about you?”
“I stayed up a bit, planning the party. I’ve gotta make it big since mom and dad are going to be out of the house the entire week. They leave tomorrow… so if you want…”, he trails his voice off suggestively and shots Sirius a smile from the side of his mouth. Even if he can be a major prick sometimes, Brady was awfully charming when he wants to be. His blue eyes twinkle with anticipation and he slides a hand on Sirius’s knee.
“I think I can come around after practice”, Sirius says with a slight smile. Brady smiles back but keeps his eyes on the road, sliding his hand further up Sirius’s leg. “But”, Sirius starts, feeling a bit confident, “I don’t know if I can make it to your party on Friday. I’ve got homework to do.”
While that wasn’t a lie, it was not the whole truth. Sirius did not want to go to Brady’s party because he did not want to deal with a drunk Brady. He did have a project for English, though, so it wasn’t a complete lie.
Brady doesn’t respond to Sirius. He keeps his eyes steady on the road and thins his lips. Sirius fidgets with his fingers and taps his foot aghast the car floor, nervously waiting for a response. He hadn’t passed the line, had he?
Brady pulls into the school parking lot and parks the car, slamming the breaks and sending Sirius lurching forward. He turns to Sirius and scowls. “You’re coming to my party, Sirius. It’s the one week my parents are out and I’ve got the house to myself. I’m throwing this party so that we can have fun together. Isn’t that what you wanted? To have more fun and lighten up?”
Sirius nods his head, recalling a conversation they had a few weeks ago in the locker rooms. Sirius had asked Brady if they could do more ‘fun boyfriend-ish things’. Brady had rolled his eyes at the time and said there wasn’t anything more that they could do without coming out and that was the end of the conversation. “Yeah”.
“Well now that I plan something fun for us, you want to skip out to do homework. It seems like nothing is good enough for you. I don’t understand”, Brady says coldly. He turns the keys in the wheel, turning the engine off. “Unless… unless you’re seeing somebody else. Are you seeing somebody else?”
Sirius shakes his head furiously. “No! No, Brady! Of course not! I’m only… it’s only you”.
“Good. I don’t want any other of those dirty boys putting their hands on you. You can’t trust people around here, they all want to take advantage of you. You’re lucky you have somebody like me to protect you from creepers”.
Sirius doesn’t comment on the fact that he was the only boy Brady has ever been with. As far as Sirius knew, Brady had limited interactions with other gay men. Even though they lived in the Portland suburbs, there were hardly any out gay teens running around. The only gay person Sirius knew other than himself was Brady, and they were both closeted. But Sirius doesn’t bring this up to Brady. In a way, Sirius is lucky to have Brady. Brady was the one who told Sirius that it was okay to be gay. Brady was Sirius’s first kiss and first boyfriend. Brady was everything. Sure he could be mean when he wanted to be, but he could also be sweet when he wanted to. People did have multiple dimensions to them after all.
“Alright, I’ll go to your party. I guess I can catch up on the English project some other time”, Sirius says.
Brady smiles at Sirius and Sirius is reminded of the reason why he fell for Brady in the first place.“Great, let’s go to class now”.
The boys roam the halls with their chest puffed out and book bags hanging off one shoulder, effortlessly looking cool. They greet people they know and wave to giggling girls, just to keep an image up. Even though Sirius wasn’t attracted to girls, he didn’t mind it when they gave him attention. Truthfully, Sirius liked attention of all kinds, as long as eyes were on him he didn’t care. It made him feel big and confident, something he rarely felt outside of school.
Sirius spots Remus coming down the hall before Brady can. He narrows his eyes at the boy, watching him talk to Lily Evans with a stack of books in his hand. He tugs at Brady’s jacket and says, “Look at him”. Brady smiles at Sirius and the two make their way over.
Ever since the fight in freshman year, Sirius and Remus’s tension only increased. Remus always had a jab to poke at Sirius and never hesitated to publicly embarrass Sirius. Over the years Sirius started to feel way less guilty about the way he treated Remus and after one snide remark too much, Sirius also joined in with the pettiness. Sirius and Remus had a mutual dislike for each other and you’d have to be blind not to see it.
“Nerd alert”, Sirius sneers before shoving Remus into a locker, causing him to drop all his books again.
“Black!” Lily shouts, her face heating up to a bright red. She opens her mouth to say something else but Remus cuts her off.
“How creative, Black. I thought that an honors student such as yourself would be able to come up with something more creative than ‘Nerd alert’. Or maybe McGonagall was right, maybe you should transfer to Standard English.” He bends down to pick up his books and Sirius has to stop himself from starring. Just because he hates the kid now doesn’t mean his ass got any less attractive.
“Isn’t that where the rest of your trash friends are?”
Remus rolls his eyes and stands up, books in hand, before giving Sirius a wry smile. “Am I trash or am I a nerd, Sirius? Make up your mind? It makes creating meaningful insults much easier when you’ve got a script”.
Sirius scowls. “Both”.
Remus shrugs. “Okay, works for me. See you later, trust fund”. Remus turns around and begins to walk away. Sirius knows he should just let him go, that it’s not worth it to constantly bicker, but he hates the way Remus never seems to care. Nothing Sirius says bothers Remus, there’s nothing that gets under Remus’s skin. Remus was meticulous with the feud, he never showed any emotions during an altercation but would later get Sirius back. It was frustrating.
So Sirius decides to stoop low. “Tell your dad I said ‘hi’”, Sirius calls out. He knows it’s a low blow, but he can’t help it. It was guaranteed to get a reaction out of Remus, and it did.
Remus stops immediately and turns around, pale in the face. He looks at Sirius with a look of utter contempt, letting Sirius know he had gotten what he wanted. He had gotten to Remus.
“And tell your mother I said hello and that I know places where people like her can go for help”. Remus turns and walks away with Lily and they both disappear in the crowd of kids, leaving Sirius with his mouth wide open.
The worst thing about hating Remus was that they used to be friends. They spent their entire time in middle school joking around, goofing off, and telling secrets. They both knew where to go to truly blow a fuse and get a knockout. Their previous friendship set a foundation for their current altercations and even though it had been years since their fallout, Sirius still knew Remus like the back of his own hand. And that was terrifying.
Sirius’s fist clenches up and his heart pounds against his chest. ‘People like her’.
“C’mon, Sirius. Let’s get out of here”, Brady says. Brady knew all about Sirius’s home life, he was one of two people Sirius ever told about his mom. Brady even knew about the affair. He had been so good to Sirius when the news first got out, taking him on night-time drives to distract him and being extra affectionate.
Bradys drags Sirius away and whispers, “Tomorrow when you come over I’ll give you such a good time you won’t even remember any of this happening”. Sirius smiles at Brady and allows himself to be dragged away to class, all thoughts of Remus and his alcoholic mother slipping away. Brady was too good for Sirius.
~Thursday~
“I’m thoroughly impressed”, a young man no older than twenty-five in a grey knit sweater says with a smile. The man was Gary Romero and Remus had been seeing him for five months now with hopefully only a month left to go. If Remus played his cards right, he’d never have to see this man again. It’s not like Remus didn’t like Gary, rather it was the circumstances he had to see Gary that he hated.
Gary slips the yellow folder in between his fingers and opens it up, glancing over its contents. “Your English teacher wrote saying that your one of her favorite students and your Pre Calc teacher says that you’re faster than a calculator. Your Sophomore year transcripts came in today and I was shocked when I read through them. You got straight A’s!”
Remus fights the urge to smile slyly or roll his eyes. Of course he got straight A’s, was that so hard to believe? He spent hours doing his homework after school and woke up an hour early every day just to study. Why did everybody think Remus was some miracle case?
“So if I keep up my grades and stay out of trouble, do you think I’d still have a good shot at getting into a University?” Remus asks. Gary’s smile falters and he scratches the back of his head.
“Well… You’d have one compelling essay, that’s for sure”, Gary says. He sighs and drops the happy-go-lucky act. “I’m not going to lie, it’s going to be hard to get Universities to consider somebody like…”, he stops himself, reconsidering his words. Somebody like you. Remus knew what Gary was going to say and he knew it was the truth. It would be hard for somebody like him to do a lot of things.
“But it wasn’t drug-related. And Common App only cares if it was drug-related, right?”
Gary nods his head slowly. “In some aspects… Look, Remus, you’re a smart kid, I’ve got all these notes from your teachers and your report card to prove it. You know it’s going to be hard no matter what and to top it off you don’t have the cleanest record. But I believe if you are upfront about your past in your applications, you’ll be sure to get in somewhere. Most Universities around here will ask if you’ve been arrested or convicted of a crime, both of which you have been. But if you keep your nose clean and continue to do well in school, I’m sure you can charm some administration officers. Administration officers love a good redemption story.”
“So look, as long as you keep on getting good notes from your teachers and people to vouch for you, you should be fine. Just keep getting good grades, keep up with Mathletes, and stay out of trouble”, he says the last part firmly and his eyes shoot up to the analog clock hanging in the back of the cramped office. They only had five minutes left.
“You’re a good kid, you were just doing bad things. Most people won’t punish you for things you did when you were fifteen.”
Remus offers a shy smile. He knew it wasn’t completely true, people have been punishing him for things he didn’t even do his entire life. But he doesn’t say that. There was no need to bring Gary down. Gary was young, new to the job, and genuinely interested in helping kids. Give him a few more years and a few more cases that were rougher than Remus’s and he’ll lose that smile and forgiving attitude.
“Now I’ve got some things I’d like to talk to you about before we leave here. I’ve got to ask you some questions and I need you to answer honestly”, Gary says in his professional voice, reminding Remus that no matter how optimistic and friendly Gary was, he was still a probation officer and had a job to do.
“Alright”. Remus tugs at the hem of his flannel like he always does when he gets a bit nervous. “I’ll be honest”.
“Okay, have you left the state of Oregon since the last time we met?”
Remus shakes his head. The instate-order didn’t really affect Remus. He couldn’t leave Oregon even if he wanted to. He didn’t have a car or enough money on hand to get enough bus tickets to leave the state. The only time he ever had to travel out of state was for Mathletes, but they hadn’t had a competition since the end of Sophomore year and Remus had talked to Ms.Vector and gotten out of it.
Remus didn’t even have to lie when he said, “No.”
Gary nods and writes something down on a white paper. In their weekly meeting, Gary always asked Remus the same questions and got the same answers. He never questions the truthfulness of Remus’s answers, and Remus thinks that Gary should be a bit more intrusive. But Gary appeared to be more interested in gaining Remus’s trust and wouldn’t even dig too deep. It was almost like he was scared of upsetting Remus. Either that or he genuinely believed Remus. Gary was new, so he probably got all the easy cases, Remus being one of them. Maybe Gary truly believed that Remus was a straight-A goody goody who just happened to make a bad decision that would stain his records. Remus is happy to let him believe that.
“And you’ve been staying away from alcohol and other drugs?”
Remus nods. “Yes”.
Gary raises his eyebrows and purses his lips, looking at Remus with a shred of doubt. Remus stares back at Gary with a blank expression, trying to hide his nerves. His hands get clammy and his heart speeds up, but he doesn’t dare show any emotion.
“Alright. I believe you. Last question. Have you stolen anything since the last time we met?”
Remus shakes his head. “No, I haven’t stolen anything since March”. There were no nerves this time. It was the truth.
Gary smiles at Remus, dropping the stern, professional demeanor. He writes something down on the white paper again before putting it in the yellow folder. “Great. You’ve been making a lot of progress, Remus. Although I must say, you were never too far gone to begin with.” Gary clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “There are some kids here that really push my buttons”, he says bitterly.
“But you’ve always been respectful and you seem to want to build a nice life for yourself. You’ve stayed out of trouble for the last five months we’ve been meeting with each other, so I think for the rest of our time together, we don’t have to meet as often. Maybe just once a month”.
Remus feels his heart drop. He had been hoping to get off early, six months and done like what Ricky did. Remus didn’t like being on probation. He didn’t need a probation officer to ‘guide’ him or help him stay out of trouble or whatever they were supposed to do. He could do that himself. Another reason why Remus hated being on Probation was the fact that it was terribly embarrassing. Most teachers have high expectations of Remus and viewed him as a model student; taking all honors and Ap classes, on Mathletes, and friends with Lily Evans, another model student. So it was extremely embarrassing when he had to explain to Ms.Vector that he couldn’t travel to Seattle for the end of the school Mathlete competition because his probation officer wouldn’t let him travel out of state. Ms.Vector had actually thought he was joking because surely Remus Lupin, the straight-A student and mathlete couldn’t have been on probation. Being on Probation was also a giant waste of time. Remus could be doing homework, or working, or hanging out with friends right now.
So excuse Remus if he was sick and tired of being on probation. He hated talking about the same shit every week and trying to reassure people that he was doing fine. He was fine and he didn’t need anybody to help him along.
“Okay, once a month”, Remus says, parroting Gary. He tried to keep his disappointment out of his voice.
“Instead of you reporting here once a week, I’d like it if you went to a meeting for people with similar issues as yourself”. He said it like it was a suggestion, but Remus knew it wasn’t. Great. He now had something else to worry about.
“What do you mean?” Remus asks sharply.
Gary bites his lip and taps against his desk nervously. “You are going to attend Shoplifters Anonymous meetings every Saturday morning for the next seven months until your probation sentence is finished. Do you understand?”
Remus blinks. “Okay”, he sighs.
He couldn’t exactly say no to Gary. Anything Gary said, Remus had to do unless he wanted to go to juvie and Remus did not want to go to juvie. But that also didn’t mean that Remus wanted to go to Shoplifters Anonymous either. Remus was not a kleptomaniac, he was just caught up at the wrong time with the wrong things. He didn’t need to go to Shoplifters Anonymous and didn’t want to either. Saturday mornings were for skating, doing homework, and hanging out with friends, not attending meetings for a problem Remus doesn’t even have.
“I’ll give you the address and time for the meetings. I’d like you to attend starting this week. I’ve already talked to the adviser of the program and asked her to keep an eye on you, so I’ll know if you are skipping the meetings. Not that I think you would, but just letting you know.” He hands Remus a business card with the Shoplifting Anonymous details and checks the clock again. “Our time here is up. Do you have any parting questions?”
Remus shifts in his seat. He did have one question, all though it was completely off-topic and irrelevant to his ‘growth’. But Remus had promised Lily, so he sighs and nods. “Yes. I have a question about um… I know you're a probation officer, but do you maybe know of any resources for people that run away?”
Gary frowns. “You’re not thinking of running away, are you?”
“No. Just asking for a friend”, Remus says quickly.
“Well then. there are resources for locating missing teens, but they have to be a minor. Is this friend of yours under eighteen?”
Remus screws his face up, trying to rack his brain. Was Petunia eighteen? She was, wasn’t she? Two years older than Lily, which would make her exactly eighteen. “No, she’s eighteen”.
Gary gives Remus a sympathetic look and sighs. “I’m sorry. Maybe you should try filing a missing persons report with your local police station”.
Remus shrugs and scoots his chair away from Gary’s desk. The sun was going down and yellows, oranges, and reds dissolved in the setting sky. It was getting rather late and Remus’s mom liked it when Remus got home before dark. He had an English project to work on with Lily and he had the closing shift at the Dinner. He’d have to leave now if he wanted to catch the bus on time.
“I’ll think about it. Anyways, I should leave now. Got some homework to do”. Remus slings his book bag over his shoulder and pushes the chair back in. “See you in a month, Mr.Romero”.
Gary smiles at Remus and waves him off. “Stay out of trouble”.
Remus nods. Fat chance.
Two buses and a ten-minute walk later, Remus busts open the front door to his house. He walks into the living room and throws down his book bag on the stiff green couch before heading into the conjoined kitchen to find something to eat. He opens the fridge and frowns when he sees nothing but a jar of pickles and a carton of eggs. Hope had been working night shifts recently, leaving her unable to make dinner or grocery store runs regularly. Remus would bring something back from the Dinner for her and when he got paid he’d take a trip to the grocery store.
Remus finds a can of tomato soup under the sink and cracks it open after checking the expiration date. He dumps it in a pot and heats it up over the stovetop. Lily would be sure to pop in soon for the project, so he takes two bowls out from the cabinet. Lily loves tomato soup.
They didn’t have any cheese, but there was a loaf of bread in the cabinet next to the bowls. Remus takes two slices out and cuts them into halves before popping them into the toaster.
While waiting for the soup to heat up and the bread to toast, Remus jumps onto the ledge of the kitchen counter. He pulls a pack of cigarettes and a green lighter out from the pocket of his flannel and takes a cigarette out before positioning the cigarette in between his lips. He takes a deep drag and exhales the smoke slowly, letting it expand throughout the kitchen.
The toast pops out of the toaster the same time the front door opens. Lily’s over enough to be past the point of knocking on the front door, she smiles at Remus before throwing her school bag on the couch next to Remus’s and strolls into the kitchen.
“Hey, Remus”. She glances over at the stovetop and the toast that had fallen onto the counter. “Whatcha doing?”
Remus chuckles a bit before hopping off the counter and making his way over to the stove. Small, creamy bubbles began to form at the rim of the pot, letting Remus know that the soup was thoroughly heated. He turns off the stove and starts dumping the soup into the two bowls with his cigarette in his mouth.
“Making us soup. There’s some toast on the counter. It popped out of the toaster”, he mumbles. Some ash flickers into the soup as he finishes pouring the soup into one last bowl. “Fuck, I ashed in this one. I’ll eat it”, he says more to himself than to anybody else. He hands a bowl to Lily and grabs her a spoon.
“Thanks, Remus”. They make their way to the stiff green couch and sit down, balancing their bowls of soup on their laps before placing them on the coffee table. Lily starts rummaging for something in her school bag and says, “How was your meeting with Gary?”
Remus groans and takes a bite of the soup. Lily was one of two people that Remus willingly told about his probation, mostly because Lily was there when he got arrested. They had been roaming around Gordics’s Hollow Mall when a particularly nice bracelet caught Lily’s eye in a J.C. Penny. It was right about the time Petunia first ran away and Ms.Evans was at her wit's end trying to track down Petunia. Lily had told Remus that she wished she could afford the bracelet to give as a gift for her mother, and Remus dumbly suggested she steal it. There weren’t any cameras around and the bracelet was out on display. It would be an easy steal.
Remus hadn’t ever been much of a shoplifter. Sure, he had nicked a few soft drinks or candy bars in his time, but he had never stolen anything of any value. It was a dumb idea that he had suggested not thinking Lily would actually follow through with. But she did.
She slipped the bracelet off the display and slid it into one of her shopping bags. When they walked out of the store, the sensors by the door light up and released an obnoxious beeping noise. Lily had been terrified. She was shaking and on the verge of tears, mumbling almost incoherently about how this was the last thing her mother needed.
So Remus did what seemed like a good idea at the time, he snatched the bag with the bracelet out of her hands and took the fall for it.
He had been arrested before. It would’ve been different if it was his first run-in with the law, but it wasn’t. He was hanging out with some friends from the skate park, smoking cigarettes behind the school and watching Ricky and Jake spray paint one of the brick walls with cheap spray paint they bought from Home Depot, when the school janitor, Mr.Filch, caught them. For such a tattered and frail-looking man, he sure had some pipes on him. Remus’s ears rang for days after Filch got done yelling at them. He called the cops and all of them got arrested. Remus didn’t get charged with anything as he didn’t partake in any of the vandalism, but he still got his name on an arrest-log.
So between the hefty price of the bracelet and his name already on an arrest log, he didn’t get off with a slap on the wrist. There was a fine of an undisclosed number (Hope wouldn’t tell him) and he got a year on probation.
“It was fine, the usual. I asked about Petunia’s situation, but they can’t do anything about her since she’s eighteen. I’m sorry”.
Lily shrugs, a flash of anger flickers through her green eyes. “It’s fine. I don’t really care if she comes home or not, but mom’ll be upset when I tell her the news. Anyways, what else happened?”
“Gary asked me a bunch of bullshit questions, I lied my way through half of them, and now he’s making me go to some Shoplifting Anonymous meetings on Saturdays”, Remus seethes.
Lily pouts her lips before inhaling sharply. Remus knows exactly what she’s about to say, she says it each week when he gets back from his meetings with Gary. “I’m sorry Remus, it’s my fault your going to those dumb meetings”.
Remus waves her off and shakes his head. “It’s really not, Lily. It was my idea, a dumb one at that, and if I hadn’t opened my stupid mouth, I wouldn’t have landed myself in this mess. Plus, it’s the least I could do. You saved my life. I owe you so much more than a year’s worth of probation”.
Lily frowns, her dark eyebrows furrowing deeply and her nose scrunching up with distaste. She brushes a strand of her auburn hair behind her ear and sighs, most likely thinking about that chilly December evening. “You don’t owe me anything, Remus”, she says softly while not quite meeting Remus’s eyes. She grabs her share of the tomato soup and dips her spoon into it. “The only person you owe anything to is yourself.”
Remus chuckles. He didn’t deserve Lily. She always knew what to say and when to say it. But this time she was wrong. Remus didn’t owe himself anything. All he did was make other people’s lives harder. He stubs out his cigarette on an ashtray on the table in front of the couch and grabs his bookbag.
“Let’s get started on this fucking project”, he groans while taking out his folder and the novel they were reading in class. It was ‘The Outsiders’ by S.E. Hinton. Remus had read it in one day, it wasn’t an exceptionally long nor hard book to read. Its sentences were simple and often consisted of improper grammar. It was the plot that hooked a lot of students. Most of the girls in first period Honors English 11 were absolutely smitten with the book, but Remus didn’t understand what all the hype was all about. There was nothing impressive about the book.
“Okay, well first we have to decide what our theme of the book is. I personally think it has to do with what Cherry said at the beginning of the book about how things are-”
“Rough all over, I know”, Remus sneers, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. Things weren’t rough all over. There were people out there who were suffering and there were people sitting on their high horses thinking they were suffering. Cherry Valance had nothing on Ponyboy Curtis.
Remus unzips the front pocket of his bookbag and feels around for his dab pen. He feels the cold smooth metal pen and pulls it out of the bag. He takes a hit of it before tossing it to Lily.
Lily looks down at the pen and scowls. “Remus, we’re not getting high to do this project!” She screeches. She gives Remus one of her infamous ‘you-better-put-that-away’ glares and clicks her tongue.
“It’s a bullshit project about a bullshit book. I’m not going to sit here sober and write about how things are ‘rough all over’ or whatever the fuck the book says when it’s evident some people have bigger problems than others.”
Lily throws the pen back at Remus before crossing her arms and giving Remus a stern look. “Well, I think the book is charming. Believe it or not, Remus, but things are rough all over, and if you can’t see that maybe you aren’t looking hard enough.”
“And what exactly am I supposed to be looking at?” He pauses to take another hit of the dab pen. “Let’s take Sirius Black for an example. He bullies people and causes trouble all because he doesn’t get along with mommy and daddy meanwhile he’s never had to work a day in his life and is waited on hand and foot at his fucking mansion. He thinks his life is hard because his mom is an alcoholic. Sure that’s bad, and I feel bad for the kid, but there are tons of people out there who have it worse and he acts like he is the only person in the world feeling pain of any kind. So excuse me if I can’t sympathize with people like Sirius Black.”
“Right, I agree with you. Sirius Black is a complete dickhead who can’t see straight because he’s so far up his own ass, but Sirius is just one person who happens to be rich and a dick. I’m sure there are much better examples to prove that things truly are rough all over. Like Cherry Valance”.
“I see no difference between Sirius Black and Cherry Valance. Both of them are rich kids that rolled around with the rough poor kids for a while before deciding it’s not for them. Cherry gets into that mustang and tells Ponyboy not to say hi to her in the halls… She’s a fucking bitch.”
Lily sighs, her defense faltering. “Fine. Hand over the pen”. Remus tosses the pen and she takes a deep hit of it. “Let’s just get this fucking project over with”.
~Friday~
The party was a bust. Peter had led James around the large McMansion, introducing him to anybody and everybody willing to spare them five seconds of their time. Eventually, Peter asked James to make them some drinks, and James stumbled off to the drink table to fill Peter’s request. James used to go to lots of parties in California, but he never drank because of soccer, so all of this drink mixing was new to him. He decided to pour some punch and mix in some vodka for some liquid courage.
While he was pouring the drinks, he heard a rough, raspy voice from behind him say, “Brady, I’m leaving. You’re already drunk”.
Another voice said, “You’re not fucking leaving Sirius, stay a little while”.
James started to pour the drinks slower, watching the red punch drip into the red solo cup.
“You used to be fun, Brady.”
“Hey, hey”, Brady growled.
James heard a soft yelp and Sirius said, “Ow, Brady. You’re hurting me”. James then heard footsteps approaching him. They grew louder and James quickly finished up making the drinks. He didn’t want to seem like he was eavesdropping. He picked up the two drinks and turned around, just to hit Sirius Black square in the chest with one of the cups.
Sirius looked at James with a look of utter contempt. Clouds passed through his grey eyes and his face stilled. For a second James seriously thought he was going to get punched in the face.
“Great”, was all Sirius said. He pushed James out of the way before giving him one last sharp look. “You heard nothing’, he warned.
It took him ten whole minutes to find Peter again. He was talking to some short girl with long black hair and big chocolaty eyes. James vaguely heard the words. “Let’s get out of here” and “What about your friend?” and “I’m only showing him around because he’s new. I’m sure he’s found some other people to hang around with by now”. He watched as the pair stumbled out of the room, zig-zagging in between sweaty teenagers.
James looked down at the two cups in his hand and decided to chug on. The alcohol burned a bit more than James had expected it to but he didn’t care. He dumped the empty cup on the floor before heading out front.
He walked all the way home thinking about California.