Chapter Text
Saturday, August 31st, 1996
Sirius wasn't a morning person, but today he woke up at 6:23 without the assistance of an alarm. He didn’t linger in bed as he usually would, and was quick to throw on a crisp, white button-up and navy slacks—the ‘safe’ outfit he’d picked for his last day at Grimmauld Place. Jeans were an unnecessary risk, this close to the end.
Despite his early wake up (or perhaps because of it, knowing his father’s sadistic streak), Orion insisted on a formal breakfast. It had been Sirius’s favorite meal 'til a couple weeks ago. With his father’s face hidden behind the morning paper, he could break the usual tedium of mealtimes as long as he stayed quiet. Teeth covered with an orange rind, drippy ketchup faces on hash browns, a plateful of grapefruit tits with blueberry nipples—anything to make Regulus crack a smile. It was a game the brothers had played for years, a game their mother willfully ignored from her seat at Orion’s side.
But there was no one to appreciate his edible obscenities today. Regulus was gone.
Now, breakfast was like any other meal. Sirius stared blankly ahead like the mirror image of Walburga across the table, suspended in time as they waited to be dismissed. When Orion finally folded his newspaper and stood from the table, he peered down at his eldest son through narrowed eyes.
“Remember what we talked about, Sirius.”
His head buzzed with the familiar thrum of anxiety he always felt when his father addressed him directly, made worse by the two cups of black coffee he'd just drank. Still, he was sure to look him in the eye. He hated the way his father’s rough fingers pulled at his chin when he forgot.
“Yes, Sir,” he answered robotically.
Orion said his goodbye in the form of a sharp nod before turning toward his study, shutting the heavy door behind him with an echoing thud. If Sirius could stay out of trouble, that would be the last time he saw his father until Christmas.
When he walked through the imposing double doors at the front of the manor, Sirius took a moment to gaze across the grounds of the estate where he grew up. Every inch of this place dripped with memory, though he hadn’t spent more than two months at a time here since he was eleven.
The colonial mansion was gleaming white, its four imposing columns looming over him. They had a different groundskeeper when Sirius was young, a kind man with a great big beard whose name Sirius had long since forgotten. What Sirius remembered was how fun it looked when he hosed down those columns, and that when he’d asked to try it himself, it was even better than he’d thought. The force of the flow pushed his little body backwards, the hose like a great struggling beast he had to wrangle. It was so much fun that it might’ve been worth the hiding he got afterward, though he’d been sad the man was fired.
He could see the very edge of the servants’ quarters peeking out from behind the house, a fraction of the size and housing double the people. Sirius didn’t know it wasn’t ‘normal’ to have a live-in staff until James visited the summer after their first year at school. When his friend convinced him to sneak in, Sirius was surprised to find he much preferred the low ceilings and constant noise of the back house to the drafty silence he’d gotten used to in his own home. He was not surprised that James was never invited back
Sprawled in front of it all were the soulless, manicured gardens, where flowers bloomed in coordinated shades of pastel and white. Sirius was banned from the gardens at seven years old after destroying a hedge of hydrangeas while hiding from Orion and his belt. He’d cried afterward, both because of his stinging bottom and the sight of the flowers he’d crushed. He hadn’t meant to hurt them.
Sirius sighed. It seemed that sighing was the sort of thing one was supposed to do at a moment like this. When he returned to this place, he’d be eighteen—a man in the eyes of the law. He wondered if it would look different then, if the memories of childhood would feel further away than they did now.
Gravel crunched behind him, and Sirius turned to see his mother approaching with a glossy shoe box in hand. “Since you insist on playing that silly game…” she said, pointedly looking away away from him. In moments like this, when Walburga’s frigid demeanor veered into awkwardness, Sirius could almost find her endearing.
He cautiously opened the box to reveal a pair of spotless white sneakers. She’d probably given her assistant instructions to buy the most expensive model in the store, and it would be a thoughtful gift if not for the tacky Black family crest embroidered onto the sides.
“Thank you, mother,” he said with a polite smile.
His parents had always found his dedication to basketball distasteful. They’d much rather him play a country club sport like golf or tennis, but when a scout offered him early admission to Cornell last year, the harsher criticism stopped, despite their dismissal of Cornell as one of the ‘lesser Ivy Leagues.’
“You’re captain now. Don’t embarrass us,” she said curtly. He was glad she didn’t say something gauche like make us proud—after nearly eighteen years, they both knew that wasn’t gonna happen.
After another goodbye devoid of hugs or kisses, Sirius flopped into the backseat of one of his father’s pretentious town cars. On to Hastings Academy—home, as he thought of it—where his last year of high school would start Monday morning.
“Ready, Monsieur Black?” Alain asked, looking at Sirius through the rearview.
Alain too, evoked memories of Sirius’s childhood. He used to fantasize that the chauffeur was his real father, and that one day, he’d steal him and Reg away from the their joyless life in Darien and fly them to Paris, where all his best stories took place.
“Ready,” Sirius replied, mustering up half a smile. His fantasy had faded with age, but his fondness for Alain had not.
The two-hour drive cutting diagonally across Connecticut was familiar, but it was the first time he'd done it without his brother. It felt odd not to be bickering over the windows. Regulus liked them up because he hated the noise and the way the wind mussed his hair, but they always ended up down because that was Sirius’s preference. Without Regulus to argue with, Sirius found he didn’t actually care.
The passing landscape was a hundred miles of trees with the occasional disruption of white paint and red brick, near-identical towns that Sirius never bothered to remember the names of. Regulus might’ve appreciated the way a few of the more impatient trees had started to change color, but much like those yellowing leaves, Sirius found himself pulled prematurely into the season to come: senior year.
He yearned for the familiar comforts it promised: his lumpy twin bed by the window, his record collection stashed beneath it, and more than anything, his two best friends. He’d been deprived of the telephone all summer, and the thought of being reunited with James and Pete after two months apart brought an unconscious smile to his lips. James was already on campus, helping the first years at orientation as head boy, but Sirius was sure he wouldn’t see Peter ’til the next night. Unlike Sirius, Pete actually enjoyed summer vacation, and never returned to school until the last possible moment.
This year was going to be different, though. His father had made that very clear when he summoned Sirius into his study last week.
“The boys at Hastings aren’t just boys, Sirius. They’re the lawyers that will control you freedom. The bankers that will influence your fortune. The investors that will decide your success. These idiotic stunts you pull—these ‘pranks,’ as you call them—will be remembered.”
Childhood was running out, and his future as the Black Heir loomed over him, a dark cloud that promised a long and heavy storm. His first internship with Black Industries would begin next summer, and then he’d be off to Yale to be groomed to take over the company. It was a great responsibility, but as he’d been reminded of many times, the reward was even greater. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and all that.
“Those brats you hang around—Potter and Pettigrew—they’re not from the same world as us. Perhaps they can afford to be the class clowns. You cannot.”
Sirius knew he was different from James and Peter. The problem was that they didn’t know. They’d already thrown a fit when they found out Orion had chosen his college, so Sirius certainly wasn’t planning to tell them he wanted a say in who Sirius dated now, too.
“I don’t know what your infatuation with that MacDonald girl was last year, but she isn't the right type for you. Pick one of Narcissa’s friends if you must. She’s much better at finding suitable company.”
Sirius shuddered at the thought of spending time with his cousin’s stuck-up friends, but he’d always known he'd lose control of his love life, eventually.
For the Blacks, marriage was a business deal wrapped up in a shiny white bow. It's what his parents had done before he was born, and what had happened to Bellatrix two years ago when she married that tech mogul LeStrange, whose company was now the latest subsidiary of Black Industries. It was archaic, but hopeless to resist. The only person who’d escaped this fate was his cousin Andromeda, who’d disappeared after her graduation from Hastings and was probably dead in a ditch somewhere. Or at least that’s what his parents said.
Besides, it could be worse. A hundred years earlier and he would've been married off to Narcissa herself. Sometimes, it even seemed like a good thing—Sirius could never figure out which girls to like on his own, anyways.
He dated girls, of course—he liked girls—but up ’til now, he’d gotten away with asking out whichever one the other guys talked about most. He’d never understood how James raved about his girlfriend for hours on end, or why Peter turned into a stuttering, red-faced idiot every time he talked to his crush of the week.
It must be a matter of experience. He'd had more girlfriends than James and Peter combined, so it made sense that who he dated mattered less. Plus, not even a centerfold model from one of Peter’s jizz-stained Playboys could distract him from his worries this year. Between the abrupt absence of his brother, his impending adulthood, and the coming departure from everything he’d ever known, what Sirius needed wasn’t a girl, but a strike of lightning.
Sirius was pulled from his sulking when the car passed through Hastings’ familiar iron gates. Alain crept around the great looping driveway to drop him off at the foot of the lawn, which was sprinkled with the same bright yellow spots it always was at summer’s end. He and James and Pete had collected dandelion seeds in town back in fourth year to scatter across campus, and since then, the pesky little flowers cropped up every summer. Filch would get rid of them soon enough, but they were always here to greet Sirius when he arrived.
His delight shattered when he shut the car door and caught sight of his reflection in the tinted window. He was all polished and prim, his cropped hair slicked neatly back with nasty pine-scented pomade he couldn’t wait to wash out. His hair had almost reached his shoulders at the end of last year, earning him the teasing nickname of Keanu from James and Pete, but Orion made him cut it over the summer. Well, Sirius supposed that wasn’t completely true—his dad had given him a choice. “If you won’t cut it, don’t expect to leave the house. You’re not going into town looking like a faggot,” he’d said. Sirius lasted two weeks before relenting to a haircut.
Sirius and Alain stood behind the car next to the neat row of monogrammed luggage that Alain had pulled from the trunk. It was the time when a parent would hug their child, but Alain was only his father in a distant universe of childhood whimsy.
“Au revoir, petite étoile,” Alain said softly. Goodbye, little star.
Yes, in another universe. It was a bittersweet thought to dwell on as Alain drove away.
Turning toward campus, a complex of red brick and creeping ivy, Sirius caught sight of a couple fifth year girls ogling him from a blanket on the lawn. When he waved, they broke into furtive whispers. He’d missed that too. Being wanted always gave him a nice sort of feeling, but he quickly forgot all about the girls as he navigated the stone paths to the upper school boys’ dormitory.
He opened the front door and was hit with the undefinable scent of home, a scent that can be neither recalled nor described, only recognized when one is met with it after time away. He gripped his suitcases tightly and wove through the plush furniture of the common room toward the staircase. He tried not to look at the door to the room that was once his brother’s, instead latching onto the anticipation that swelled in his belly as he took the steps two at a time to his own room.
Sirius knew James was inside when he heard muffled music through the door. He grinned when he realized it was his own pressing of Hunky Dory playing. James must've finally come to appreciate the genius of Bowie this summer.
“Prongsie, I’m home!” he shouted, flinging the door open carelessly.
But James wasn’t there. In his place was a stranger. A stranger sitting on his bed. A stranger who was looking at Sirius slightly wide-eyed, as if he were the one being surprised.
Was it a prank? Was it a dream? Was it the wrong room? Sirius glanced at the door: 3C. He was in the right place.
His next thought was that his parents had forgotten to tell anyone that it would be him returning instead of Reg, but when he flicked his eyes around the room, he saw that his bed (the one the stranger was so nonchalantly sprawled across) had been pushed into the back corner to make room for a new one closer to the front.
It would appear he had a new roommate.
He didn’t look like the other boys at Hastings. Hastings boys had a polished look about them, even the ones who paraded around in ripped jeans and flannels every weekend—like the scuffs on their shoes were painted on, and the tears in their clothes were cut with scissors. There was a base level of poshness they couldn’t escape, and the harder they tried, the more they looked like dress-up dolls.
This guy looked real. There was a faded scar running across his cheek and over his nose that made him look like he belonged in an action movie, and he wore baggy jeans and a vintage-looking sweater. It was the type of outfit that would look frumpy on most people, but this guy looked really fucking cool, like Kurt Cobain had on MTV.
“You must be Sirius.” The stranger spoke with an accent that softened the vowels of his name in a pleasant way. Sirius suddenly felt a bit weak, his knees threatening to go out from under him.
“You’re on my bed.” Somehow amidst the jumble of thoughts in his head, this was the one Sirius managed to verbalize.
“James said you’d say that.”
“Yeah?”
“He also said I should tell you to fuck off.”
Sirius was unsure if he was telling a joke or starting a fight. “But you’re on my bed,” he said again, somewhat dumbly.
The stranger nodded in the direction of the empty bed by the door. “He said to look for your name.”
Sirius picked up the pillow. Sure enough, he saw the shoddy handiwork of his fourteen-year-old self: SIRIUS BLACK, carved into the headboard in messy capital letters. When they graduated from the kiddie dorms after third year, Sirius, James, and Peter had all fought over this bed for it’s place by the window, before Sirius finally claimed it with a steak knife stolen from the cafeteria. He didn’t want it anymore though. It had lost its charm, pushed to the front of the room like this.
“Let’s switch,” he said, “I want that side.”
The stranger raised a single, incredulous eyebrow. “So do I.”
Sirius started a list of reasons why he deserved the bed that this stranger had made such an unfair claim on. First of all, Sirius had been at Hastings since he was eleven, and there had to be some sort of respect for seniority. Second, James and Peter always did what he said, even if they grumbled about it. That was just how it worked, which this guy would know if he’d been here for longer than five minutes. Third, and perhaps most importantly, Sirius got very cold feet, and the bed he was being forced into was about four steps further from the bathroom, meaning any time he got up in the middle of the night, his toes would be subjected to four extra steps on the cold hardwood floor.
But Sirius didn’t know how to explain any of this without sounding like an absolute asshole, so all he said was, “Oh.”
Being Sirius Black in a status-obsessed place like Hastings had its perks. For one, he was accustomed to people bending over backwards to give him what he wanted, so he half expected the stranger to backtrack and offer a trade. When he didn’t, an awkward silence was left hanging in the air, and Sirius was never very good at silence.
“I’m going to take a shower,” he announced, suddenly desperate to escape the stranger’s scrutinizing gaze which was giving him a weird feeling in his stomach.
The feeling didn’t go away when he shut the door between them, and in the solace of the bathroom, Sirius realized his heart was pounding too, like it were the final quarter of a game. His head buzzed with a thousand questions. Who is that guy? Where’s he from? Why did he change schools? Was it because he got in a fight? Is that what the scar’s from? What other music does he like? What’s his name?
Oh, shit.
A nauseating wave of self-consciousness rolled through him. He had a new roommate—a new roommate with a cool accent and a badass scar who listened to Bowie and was probably the most exciting person in the entire state of Connecticut—and Sirius forgot to ask his name, not to mention that he must’ve looked like a total geek with his stupid button-up and slicked-back hair.
He took a deep breath as he turned on the tap. He could fix this. He had to fix this, because this guy was surely the strike of lightning Sirius was hoping for, and he wasn’t going to let him think he was some stammering dork with a bad hairdo.
The first step was to wash this shit out of his hair. Then, all Sirius had to do was go back out there and ask his name. After that they could keep listening to records and Sirius could ask his questions and they’d become best friends, since that was clearly what they were destined to be if the thrumming excitement in his body was anything to go off of. Sirius looked in mirror, carefully ruffling his wet hair and arming himself with his most charming smile.
I’m Sirius fucking Black, he reminded himself.
When he stepped out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, his stomach dropped from where it had ridden up to his throat. The music had stopped, the record was tucked away, and the stranger was gone.
* * *
Sirius only had twenty minutes to stew in uneasy shame before James burst in and tackled him to the ground.
“Padfoot, you sexy motherfucker!” James shouted as he wrestled Sirius into a headlock. “I missed you so fucking much!”
Sirius hated how good it felt to hear that. In the darker moments of summer, he imagined that James—who had his moms and his childhood friends to keep him company back home in Boston—wasn’t thinking of him at all, though he knew it was girlish to care about stuff like that.
James rubbed his knuckles roughly across Sirius’s scalp. “What did those fuckers do to your hair?!”
It was easy to ignore the question, but James’s grip was unbreakable. The difference in their heights had been steadily increasing since Sirius hit his first growth spurt at thirteen, but James still never lost a tussle. Fucking wrestlers.
“You’re gonna break my neck, Prongs! Get off!”
Sirius schooled his face into a careless smile as he and James disentangled from one another. James didn’t know about Lycée du Pont, or Regulus, or Orion’s stupid expectations, so Sirius became a version of himself that didn’t know those things either.
“Did you meet Remus?” James asked once they regained their breath.
“Who?”
“Our new roommate. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice the extra bed.”
“Oh, him.” Remus, Sirius repeated in his head. He remembered the name from the thick volume of Roman mythology in the library of Grimmauld Place. One of the brothers who was mothered by the wolf.
“So you have met him.”
“I guess so. He was using my record player.” Remus. Remus and Sirius. Our names go together.
James finally adjusted his glasses, which had been askew since their tussle. “He was pretty impressed by your collection. I told him you wouldn’t mind.”
“He could’ve scratched them.” Sirius didn’t know why he said that. Perhaps because if he explained what was actually bothering him about his encounter with Remus, he would sound like a jerk.
“Dude, he obviously knew how to use the turn table. Why are you being a dick about this? I thought you’d be excited to have someone to listen to all your retro shit with.”
Sirius clutched his chest in mock horror. “Retro shit? I happen to be a connoisseur of Classic Rock n’ Roll, you uncultured swine.” Sirius refused to have his music taste criticized by someone whose favorite artist was Boys II Men. “And I came home to find some random guy in my bed,” he continued. “I was surprised, that’s all.”
“It’s not your bed, you brat!” James burst out. “He was here for a week! Was I supposed to call dibs on the better bed for you?”
“So you admit he got the better bed!” Sirius shouted in triumph.
“Please don’t be an asshole about this,” James implored.
“Whatever. I’m over it.” It was true. Sirius was far past the issue of the bed by now, already imagining introducing Remus to his other friends. Hey guys, this is Remus. Remus. Remus. He was unsure why the vision gave him such a thrill. “Why was he here so early, anyways?” he asked.
“New student orientation.”
Sirius flashed back to their own orientation six years ago: trotting around campus for overlong tours, trying to keep up with boring presentations on the school’s history, and falling asleep during long-winded speeches.
“He did that with the little kids?” Transfer students were usually in second or third year. There hadn’t been a new senior the whole time Sirius had been at Hastings, and he was surprised they’d make Remus tag along with a bunch of eleven-year-old squirts.
“It was pretty cute actually. They followed him around like little ducklings.”
“Huh.” Remus didn’t strike him as much of a mother duck.
“He’s a cool guy, okay? Don’t be a dick.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be nice,” Sirius dismissed.
They spent the next few hours swapping stories from their months apart, though James’s trip to London and summer job at his moms’ landscaping company were far more interesting than Sirius’s dull charity dinners and stuffy garden parties, where the most exciting thing to happen was usually some guy getting too drunk or a passive aggressive argument between two old ladies.
He tiptoed around the one story that might’ve been worth telling, though he was sure to make a strategic comment about Regulus’s new school. Reg had stopped hanging out with Sirius and his friends last year, but his absence would still be noticed.
He thought he did a good job of brushing it off like no big deal:"Reg wanted to live in Paris, the pretentious little fucker. And they have a good music program, for his piano, y’know?" He dreaded the pity he would get if James found out what really happened.
Out of stories but unwilling to stop talking, James began describing the plots of all the movies he’d seen that summer, since Sirius wasn’t allowed to go to the theater. Independence Day and Mission: Impossible sounded cool, but he definitely wouldn’t watch The Birdcage. He didn’t think being gay was wrong or anything—he wasn't like his dad—but hearing about it in such detail made his stomach hurt a bit.
Sirius kept looking at the door, expecting Remus to come back, but Sirius didn’t see him again ’til dinner time. Most returning students wouldn’t be back ’til the next day, so it was easy to spot Remus in the cafeteria where he towered over the sea of first years, even seated. Easier still when he was sitting next to Lily Evans, whose bright red mane would stand out anywhere.
“You didn’t tell me they were friends,” he noted, watching Remus chatter away with Prongs’ girlfriend wearing a crooked smile.
“She’s obsessed with him. Finally someone who knows what she’s talking about half the time. Lucky for me, too—she probably woulda dumped me if she had to try explaining Infinite Jest to me again.”
Lily must’ve said something funny then, because Remus’s head tilted back in a full-blown laugh that made his Adam’s apple jut out from his throat. Sirius set a goal then and there: he had to make Remus laugh like that. It felt imperative, like there was a gaping space in his chest that only Remus’s laughter could fill.
Remus and Lily only noticed their arrival when they slid onto the bench across the table from them. Remus’s eyes flicked to Sirius for a split second before finding James. “Alright, mate?” he asked.
“Just splendid, me ol’ chap!” James greeted in a ridiculous mimicry of Remus’s accent.
Remus rolled his eyes. “Prat,” he said, giving James a fond smile. Sirius felt a pang of jealousy that they’d already developed some kind of rapport, though he wasn’t sure who he was jealous of.
“Hi, Evans. Good summer?” he asked.
“How could it be, without you to grace me with your company, Sirius?” Frustration flared in his chest at the sarcasm dripping from her voice. It wasn’t that Sirius actually disliked Lily, but he felt he should dislike people who disliked him, on principal. It mostly just confused him. Outside of his family, Sirius didn't have much experience being disliked.
James chuckled and leaned in to kiss Lily’s cheek across the table. The pair soon lapsed into a hushed conversation punctuated with giggles and doe eyes, as if they hadn’t spent the last week together presiding over the first years as Mr. and Mrs. Hastings (A.K.A. head boy and girl). Sirius turned to Remus, hoping to share an eye-roll at their expense, but Remus didn’t seem to notice, focused instead on the absurdly large helping of steak and mashed potatoes piled on his plate.
With James and his snooty girlfriend ignoring him, Sirius was left to fend for himself with their new roommate, who clearly wasn’t planning to initiate a conversation. The weird clenching in Sirius’s chest wasn’t helping either, but he persisted anyways, praying his voice wouldn’t betray his nerves.
“Remus, right?”
He kicked himself when he realized he’d asked the question when Remus’s mouth was full. Sirius hated when people did that to him. That big knot on Remus’s throat moved up and down as he gulped down the bite, and Sirius found his eyes drawn to it once again.
“So you’ve learned my name,” Remus said, a hint of amusement in his voice.
Sirius felt his cheeks go warm. “Sorry about earlier, I was just… surprised.”
He waited for Remus to say something. Maybe ‘No worries, Sirius,’ or ‘Sorry about that, Sirius,’ or ‘How was the rest of your day, Sirius?’ but instead, Remus made a non-committal hm sound and turned his attention back to his plate.
Sirius wasn't one to give up easily. He waited ’til he was sure Remus had swallowed (that’s why his eyes were trained on his throat, no other reason) before asking, “Where’s your accent from?” He was sure he already knew the answer, but people liked it when you asked questions. Makes them feel important, or at least that’s what his dad said.
“Wales,” Remus replied.
“So like, England?”
“No. Like Wales,” Remus said slowly, as if he were talking to a child.
Sirius was at a loss. People usually wanted to talk to him, jumping to fill the lulls in conversation and ignoring his faux pas, happy to have the attention of Sirius Black. But Remus was from Wales where the name Sirius Black meant nothing. He probably thought Sirius was some geeky nobody who wasn’t worth his time, especially after seeing him get snubbed by Lily Evans, of all people. He wasn't used to having to market himself, but he was willing to try. He ran down the list of things people liked about him. His looks, his family, his money, his athletic abilities…
“You play basketball?” he asked hopefully.
Remus snorted and raised an eyebrow, looking at Sirius like he’d asked something completely ridiculous. “The first time I saw a basketball was on the campus tour.”
Lily and James had stopped talking, and were looking at Sirius with an odd, tight expression. They probably wanted him to ask Remus to join the team. He was captain now, after all, and Remus looked to be as tall as Sirius, at least from sitting down. If he’d never played before, Sirius would probably have to give him private training after practice, but that was a responsibility he’d be more than willing to take on. He could already picture Remus in their red uniform, sweaty and breathless at the end of a game.
“Don’t tell anyone I said this, but half the game’s about height. You should try out for the team!”
The corners of Remus’s mouth turned down in a perturbed sort of frown, any hint of amusement now gone. “No, thanks,” he said cooly.
“What do you play in Wales then, soccer?” Sirius cringed at himself. It was probably called football there.
“I don’t play sports.”
Sirius figured that was probably because he’d never played basketball, which was obviously better than soccer or rugby or whatever else he’d tried before. “Let’s play a game of pickup after dinner! Me and Prongs can teach you. We’re both on the team and—”
“Throwing around a bouncy ball isn't everyone’s idea of fun,” Lily cut in sharply. Her and Remus wore matching expressions of distaste, and between that and their freckles, they almost looked like they could be related.
Sirius was about to argue that basketball was so much more than ‘throwing around a bouncy ball’ and that girls didn’t understand these things, but James saved him from his own stupidity. “Oh look, there’s Hooch! We should say hello, right Captain?”
Sirius took the out, accepting that his second attempt to impress Remus had failed. After a few minutes of discussing the incoming fourth years with their coach, Sirius stole a glance back at the table, but Remus and Lily were already gone.
Later, he told himself.
* * *
Later turned out to be later than Sirius expected. It was nearing eleven and Remus hadn’t returned to their dorm.
“Where is he?” Sirius whined. He’d already unpacked his trunks and covered the crests on his new sneakers with black sharpie stars.
“I dunno, he comes back late,” James replied disinterestedly, tossing a baseball up and down on his bed across the room.
“Where does he go?”
“How would I know?”
“You haven’t asked?”
“It’s none of my business.”
“But it’s past curfew!”
James finally looked at him. “Since when do you care about curfew? Look, I know it’s weird that it won’t just be us and Pete this year, but it’s not his fault, okay? Don’t be a dick.”
Sirius didn’t know how to explain that James had totally missed the point. Sirius wasn't bothered that Remus was here at Hastings. He was bothered that Remus wasn't here, in their dorm, right now.
James cocked his head to one side. “Wait. You actually feel bad, don’t you?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Sirius sighed, relieved that James had exercised his occasional ability to read his mind.
“Well you’ve got plenty of time to say sorry, right?”
The thing was, Blacks didn’t apologize. An apology is culpability, and culpability is unacceptable—that was one of his father’s favorite sayings, one that Sirius heard for the first time at seven years old. He had just given his brother a bloody lip, but he really hadn’t meant for the block to hit him. Well, maybe he had, but he definitely hadn’t meant for it to hurt him, so of course he’d said sorry. He said it over and over in fact, all while hugging Reggie tight to his chest, leaking snot and tears into his dark curls. Sirius got a paddling that day, but it wasn’t for hurting Regulus. It was for the ‘sorry’s and the tears that happened after.
Orion used to give him double the licks if he apologized for whatever transgression he was he was being beat for in the first place. A man doesn’t regret his actions, Sirius. He takes the consequences and he learns—that was another of his favorites. But Sirius already regretted his actions. The memory of Remus’s disdainful frown pinched at something in his chest, and Sirius didn’t give a shit about the educational value of consequences if the consequences included Remus frowning like that.
Sirius decided to stay awake as long as it took for Remus to return. He laid on top of his covers, staring at the ceiling and mentally reviewing his offenses against his new roommate in order to prepare an apology.
1) He didn’t ask his name. It seemed bad, but if Remus was upset about it, it was because he thought Sirius didn’t care about him, which was totally untrue, so it barely counted.
2) He asked Remus to switch beds. Upon reflection, maybe this wasn’t as selfish as he’d thought. Remus wasn't even here to enjoy his superior sleeping quarters, so if anything, it was a bit selfish of Remus not to trade.
3) He’d thought Wales was in England. Having read a summary of Wales’ centuries-long quest for independence in the library’s encyclopedia after dinner, he understood the gravity of his mistake. But he couldn’t really be blamed, could he? His poor education was clearly the fault of the school, and when he saw Remus, he would tell him as much.
4) He asked Remus to join the basketball team. Everyone had acted like he was being a jerk, but most guys would kill for an offer to join the highest-ranked high school team in New England. How was he supposed to know Remus was the only boy at Hastings with zero athletic ambition?
So what have I actually got to apologize for?
Sirius’s exercise in humility had backfired. So what, he was bad at geography and wanted to play a game of basketball? That didn’t make him an asshole! He was now not only certain he’d done nothing wrong, but he’d even go so far as to say that if anyone had the right to be angry, it was him!
He wasn’t even sure why he cared about impressing Remus in the first place. Beneath it all, he was just some Lily Evans clone who was never going to like him, and what did Sirius need with someone like that? What did it matter that Sirius would never earn his laugh or find the constellations in his stupid freckles? Remus didn’t matter. Not one bit.
That’s what Sirius told himself as he stewed in anger, and that’s what he told himself when he jumped to his feet at the sound of the door creaking open. Sirius threw his curtains back, prepared to make a fuss until Remus shouted back or gave in (to what, Sirius didn’t know), but now that he was standing face to face with Remus for the first time, he was silenced by three realizations:
1) He was right. Remus was as tall as him, maybe an inch or two taller.
2) There was a slight possibility that Sirius was an asshole after all, because
3) Remus was walking with crutches.
