The Dating Disasters of Sirius Black

Part 2: Jemima Oswald, Amanda Cherry, and lessons in flirting

Early October, 5pm, that strange room that always seems to be locked, Hospital wing.

'And Amanda is just so amazing and I saw the way she was looking at me--'

'Wait!' Remus had only been half listening, but he had thought he'd been following the plot better than that.

'What?' Sirius snapped crossly.

'I thought you were going out with Jemima, I thought we were talking about her.'

'Keep up, will you? I'm going out with Jemima to make Amanda jealous.'

'But aren't they friends?'

'Yeah, that's the point.'

'It won't work.'

'Yes it will.'

'No, it won't. Girls have little rules about these things-'

'Oh who cares? I made Amanda Cherry look at me like she couldn't wait to rip my clothes off and--'

Remus tuned him out. This was getting ridiculous. He was in a hospital bed, for god's sake. His head ached, all his bones ached, he had one hundred little scratches all over his body and one really big one that ran from the bottom of his ribcage down over his hip and half-way down his thigh. And he had those horrible teeth-marks in his arm; the ones that were huge and fanged, and obviously weren't his teeth, except of course they were.

Madame Pomfrey seemed optimistic about healing the huge cut on his leg and torso, but she was a bit worried about the bite; she seemed to think it was too deep and it might not fade for a long time.

Remus knew he couldn't wander around with a massive, fanged bite-mark on his arm, so it would have to be magically burned out of his skin. Fucking brilliant.

He'd also thrown up quite a bit of blood, but apparently that wasn't too worrying either, Poppy had merely tutted and said, 'it's been a while since you did that.'

Huh.

And never mind her complacency, what about his friends'?

He almost wanted to slap Sirius round the face and say, 'hello, werewolf in agony here!' They were just so blasé about it now. Of course, he wanted to be like a normal boy his age, he did, but the way James just waved him off with a quick 'good luck' was just... He'd even sounded almost pleased to get rid of him, like they had some mischief to get up to that they didn't want Remus interfering with. They didn't even visit him when he was in the Hospital wing anymore, or at least they didn't come because they were worried and needed to check he was alright, they just wandered along to give him his homework, or because they were bored, or because they wanted to whinge on about their latest girlfriend.

When he was eleven all he'd wanted was to be normal and to be treated the same as everyone else, but that didn't mean they didn't have to worry or care, it didn't mean they could forget how much pain he was in.

Oh yes, wallow in self pity you pathetic werewolf.

'Sirius!' He dragged his mind away from his own whinging and turned it back to Sirius'.

'What?'

'It won't work. If you split up with Jemima, Amanda will have to hate you for dumping her best friend and so she still won't go out with you. So unless you can convince Amanda that it's a good idea, and you don't tell Jemima, which, I can assure you, is not going to--'

'At the same time: you're suggesting I date them both at the same time...'

'I'm really not!' he cried indignantly.

Sirius stroked his chin. 'Dating two girls at the same time... hmm, now; could Sirius Black get away with that?'

Remus groaned deeply; it was always a bad sign when Sirius started talking about himself in the third person. 'No?' he suggested.

'Yes... with a bit of romance; always works. We could be star-crossed lovers, like that Romeo and Juliet you were talking about.'

'I see you totally missed the point with that one.'

'I tell her I can't live without her, I never wanted to hurt her dear friend, yet my passion is too strong--' he was gazing passionately towards the ceiling, fists clenched in front of him.

'In fact, you didn't read Romeo and Juliet at all...'

'I did! Listen: what light breaks that window? Er...something. Tum ti tum ti tum...and I jump her in the corridor. Foolproof!'

'They killed themselves,' Remus told him flatly.

'Well I won't be doing that bit, anyway, that's hardly the point.'

'What is the point?'

'Jumping her in the corridor! Jumping both of them in the corridor!'

Remus opened his mouth to finally lose his temper with Sirius, but he coughed instead and blood spattered down his front.

'Really, this is a momentous occasion in the life of Sirius Black, two gorgeous beauties at once, can you not even stop drooling blood for one minute?'

Remus swiped angrily at his lips. 'I'll be fine. Why doesn't Sirius Black bugger off and woo poor Amanda with his incorrect quotations and total lack of charm?'

'I'm charming!' he insisted, grabbing a tissue and dabbing away some of Remus' blood for him.

'Thanks!' Remus said bitterly.

'Don't know what you're in such a bad mood for!' Sirius told him happily as he left.

#

It was well after midnight and Remus was still awake. This was one of the worst parts about his transformation. Well, the third-worst part. The first worst part was the pain as he transformed and the whole night spent as a wolf in general. Obviously. The second worst part was the dread leading up to his transformation, which started about a week prior to it and grew steadily worse until the minutes before it happened. So this was the third worst part. Having been up all the night before, and having slept all day, he was always awake at midnight the night after, in pain and incapable of sleep.

That was when the thing jumped him.

'Mhhhhm!' He tried to yell, but was hindered by a hand pressed over his mouth.

'Shush, would you,' the thing hissed over him as it crushed him. It had Sirius' voice. He'd almost have preferred some sort of evil monster. Some different sort of evil monster.

Remus tried desperately to fight it off, but he was weak and sore. 'What on earth could bring you here at this ungodly hour?' he mumbled around the hand that had been placed over his mouth.

'Your plan--'

'What plan?' he asked, finally managing to slap Sirius' hand away.

'You know, Amanda and Jemima?'

'You came all the way here to tell me about that? And by the way it was not my plan.'

'Well, I was on my way back from the Astronomy Tower anyway...'

'I don't want to know.'

'Why not? If you aren't getting any yourself, then you can at least be interested in how well I'm doing.' Sirius had fixed him with an earnest look.

'Sirius. Listen to me.' He reached up agonisingly and clasped his friend's face between his palms, causing a shocked look from his friend, only partially illuminated by the waning moonlight. 'I'm in the Hospital wing. I'm in agony, no really. My bones ache, my skin aches, my head aches, even my hair hurts, somehow. I've scratched myself to pieces, I'm bruised in incomprehensible places. I could not be less interested in sex. Got that? It is quite definitely the last thing on my mind right now. I would be more interested in running a marathon or duelling with Snape or smothering myself with lettuce, relaxing in a bath of ravenous flobberworms, and letting them nip me to death. And in case you've missed my point; I'm never interested in doing those things. Right?' He let go and flopped back down onto his pillow.

'What is wrong with you? And by the way that last one has scarred me with most peculiar mental images.'

'Agony! That's what's wrong. Even you wouldn't be interested in sex if you'd been through this. Even you. And could you get off my legs please, because they hurt too, you know.'

'Really? So how long does this disinterest in sex last?'

'As long as the pain does,' he replied through gritted teeth.

'Really? So that's like nearly a week in every month that you aren't interested in sex?' He sounded amazed. This was definitely something Sirius would never be able to understand.

'No offence, but low sex-drive is the least of my worries right now, so if you'd--'

'Do you fancy Jemima Oswald?'

'No! Harking back to the point I was making earlier, I am currently as attracted to you as I am to her, or anyone for that matter. I am totally uninterested in any person of any sex. Or any creature, magical or otherwise, or any inanimate objects,' he added for clarification. You never knew quite what was going on in Sirius' head.

'Right.' Sirius squirmed a bit, causing more pain in Remus' legs.

'Get off!'

'Right,' he said, hurriedly obliging. 'So you don't fancy coming on a double date with me and Amanda?'

'I thought you were going out with Jemima?' Remus wondered what it would take for Sirius to fuck off. Where was Madame Pomfrey with all her rules and fussing and general disapproval of legendary trouble-maker Sirius Black when you needed her?

'I am, so you'd technically be going with Amanda, but then we'd subtly swap over the course of the day...'

'Won't work.'

'It will, you just flirt with Jemima, and I'm really horrible to her, so she decides you're nicer, and then everything will work out.'

'It will?'

'Yes, because if Jemima steals Amanda's date, then she can't be angry if Amanda steals her date. Clever, eh?'

'This wasn't your plan, was it?'

'No, it was Amanda's. She really likes me! She was just pretending to hate me, but really she thinks I'm gorgeous and sexy and wonderful and--'

'Careful, I'm already feeling a bit queasy.'

'Hm!'

'So what do you envision the eventual outcome of all this being?'

'Eh?'

'What is the ultimate goal of this appalling plan?'

'I get to shag Amanda Cherry.'

Remus groaned and slapped a hand over his eyes. He really couldn't be having with this now. 'You have omitted the two major flaws in this plan. One, I can't flirt to save my life--'

'I thought of that. I can teach you! I'm a fantastic flirt, if I do say so myself, so I'll teach you to flirt and you can teach me Shakespeare; it'll be mutually beneficial. I'm sure we can manage it by next Saturday.'

Remus ignored him. 'And, two, not wishing to overload your ego any further, but girls don't fancy me, and they definitely don't fancy me compared to you. So I think we'll be spending the whole date with them fawning over you, while I'm bored stupid. Unless I'm allowed to bring a book?'

'You are not! That's exactly why girls don't like you! You make out you're all boring in front of other people, when those of us that know you well know that you aren't half that tedious in reality. If you realised how many girls would go out with you just because you're friends with such exciting persons as James Potter and myself...'

'I certainly don't want to spend any time with the sort of girls that that attracts.'

'Look, just think about it; it's time you got yourself a girlfriend. And Jemima isn't bad; her arms are suspiciously hairy, but she's a great kisser!'

'I do not want your hairy-armed cast-offs, and I certainly don't want to go out with someone who is stupid enough to date you.'

'Come on, it shows she has taste. Look, just try it. Anyway, you're bound to need the kissing practice.'

'She won't want to touch me!' Remus had meant it when he'd said girls didn't fancy him, because they didn't.

'Sure she will. Okay, best be off; it's going to be a bugger getting back to Gryffindor Tower without James' cloak.'

'I'm sure you'll manage,' Remus told him dryly.

Sirius gave Remus' hair a thorough tousling before heading out, striding handsomely from the room, looking even more beautiful bathed in moonlight. Remus glared jealously after him. It was quite easy for Sirius to be so confident around girls.

Remus didn't even know if he wanted to be good-looking. Of course he was jealous of Sirius, because everyone wanted to have that sort of effortless charm and grace; to be able to smile at someone and have them love you immediately. But he supposed to be properly good-looking you'd have to have the personality to go with it, and Remus just didn't; it seemed like too much hard work. Sirius had it of course; outwardly he portrayed himself as supremely arrogant, with a general air of feeling himself to be superior to anyone else, but he was very different if he wanted something... If he wanted something he could be so sincere, so convincing, so utterly charming you could hardly say no. Remus knew, without a doubt, that if Sirius wasn't one of his best friends then he would not only hate Sirius Black and all that he stood for, but also that he too would be easily sucked in by the boy's charms.

But if Remus was going to be good-looking he'd want it to be in the same way that James was; happy, smiling and healthy, a bit scruffy, but normal. Everything about James was just so normal that Remus envied it far more than he'd ever envied Sirius' money and beauty. Sirius may be dark and intriguing and fascinating, but James was just, well, James really, but still... Remus knew that even Sirius envied James too, and Peter certainly did. But then Peter had the misfortune of being somehow good-looking but not at all attractive. Peter had the sort of looks that made little old witches say, 'aw, he's such a lovely-looking lad'. It came in useful when they needed Peter to distract some passers-by, asking them for directions so they didn't notice what evil James and Sirius were up to behind them, but it didn't get him any girlfriends. Though anyone's mother would be very pleased, no doubt, if their daughter brought him home. 'Such a nice, polite boy,' they'd say.

But even that would be better than being a scrawny, sickly, consumptive-looking thing like Remus John Lupin. How could he even think about getting close to a girl? Ever? It just wasn't possible, and he couldn't imagine ever having an actual relationship with anyone. How could he even think about going any further than kissing when his entire body was often covered in suspicious claw-and-teeth marks? Though he was quite happy being nondescript, if it meant no-one paid any attention to the fact that you always seemed to be ill and went randomly missing from your classes once a month. It certainly wasn't something he would ever be able to explain away if he had a girlfriend; he'd seen how possessive some girls got, with Sirius anyway, and he didn't think he'd get away with his suspiciously regular and protracted absences.

There was no way to explain any of this to Sirius. Sirius not only didn't understand why everyone in the world wasn't as confident as he was, he also couldn't understand why they weren't as clever or good-looking as he was. In fact, he seemed to think it was their own fault that they weren't.

He would get out of this date somehow, he decided, he had to.

#

'I thought you'd like this one, lots of blood and all.'

'I know that, but where is it?'

'Where's what?'

'The blood.'

'They just stabbed the king to death and later on there's a big battle and sword fighting! Right now Lord and Lady Macbeth are dripping with blood.'

'I know but you just can't see the blood.'

'I thought at least you would understand how reading worked. You see, what you do is picture it in your mind as you read the words--' Remus suppressed his grin as he spoke.

'Yes, I know, but it isn't described very well is it?'

'It's a play.'

'Yes, so where does it say 'Forsooth, and verily did the blood spurt forth from his wound in great plumes of scarlet, gushing from every orifice, including those newly created, drowning his enemies in pouring red rain--'

Remus grinned. 'That was actually quite clever, if you'd just used iambic pentameter--'

'Y'what?'

The door opened.

'Iambic pentameter, it's the beat of the lines. It's why it sounds a bit like poetry. Listen to this one and I'll conduct--'

'Enough of that; the rest of my pupils are here.'

'What? Tell me you haven't been advertising your 'flirting lessons'?'

'Nah, 'tis just James and Petey, who could certainly use the help themselves.' They shuffled in. Peter looked eager and James looked annoyed.

'Do we have to bother with this, Black?'

'Trust me, Potter, you need it.'

'Oh fuck off.'

Sirius ignored him. 'Do sit down so we can begin. Moony-boy has even provided refreshments.'

'I was teaching you about Shakespeare! I thought it would help you concentrate!'

'Well it might help you concentrate on this. You have to be proficient at it by Saturday.'

'What were you thinking, agreeing to that?' James asked him. Remus wondered if James had just read his mind.

'I was crippled after the last full moon and it was the only way to get him to bugger off. In fact I didn't actually agree to it as such; he just assumed.'

'Did you learn nothing from that time I double-dated with him?'

'Well it won't be that bad; I have no interest in either of the girls and I'm pretty sure neither of us is suffering from exploding burps--'

'What is wrong with Jemima?' Sirius interrupted petulantly.

'She has hairy arms,' Remus muttered.

Sirius' eyes narrowed. 'Anyway... Lesson one: Look interested.'

James groaned theatrically.

'It works! Forget talking about yourself, save that for later on, when she's sucked in.'

Peter looked like he almost wanted to take notes on what Sirius was saying, James was trying to look superior and bored, but not quite managing to hide his interest. Sirius was looking smug and regal and was sprawled in an elegant heap on Remus' bed.

'All you need to do is pretend to care about her. Girls love that. You don't even have to listen to what they're saying--'

Remus groaned loudly.

'What? Think you know better?' Sirius asked sharply, no doubt annoyed at being interrupted while his wisdom was in full flow.

'I think there's one main thing you don't know about girls,' he explained to his friend.

'Oh, and what is that?'

'That they're human beings too?'

'And have you ever had a girlfriend, Lupin?'

'No, but I have had conversations with girls before. I don't think you should be pointlessly flattering them when you could just have a real conversation with them.'

'Huh! Here's me helping you out and--'

'Excuse me, who are you helping out here? Yourself isn't it?'

'Shut up. So if you just listen to a girl and flatter her, then, you smile and put your hand on her arm...'

'Where are you getting this bollocks?' Remus sighed.

'It really works!'

'For you! Let us not imagine that the reason it works for you is down to anything but the fact that you are stupidly good-looking, it's clearly not because you're a nice, caring person!'

'Well I can't help being-- wait, that was an insult, wasn't it?'

James grinned nastily and winked at Remus.

'So what do you do after you put your hand on her arm?' asked Peter.

'Who cares?' asked James. 'I don't have reams of girls drooling over me and I don't care, I just want one really nice one. What the hell's wrong with that?' Remus hated James in that moment, just for being so confident. Not even that he was confident of Lily's eventual affections --because he wasn't-- but his confidence that one day he'd find someone nice, whom he loved and would love him back, and they'd be happy. Remus had never been able to imagine himself with a happy home and a wife and kids. Werewolves probably shouldn't have children anyway. Possibly it was illegal, though he'd purposely never checked.

'One really nice girl with red hair?' smiled Peter.

'One really stupid cow with red hair,' corrected Sirius.

Remus thought it was quite horrifying how jealous they all were of James. Remus wanted to be like him, Peter practically wanted to be him and Sirius... Remus had a feeling that the thing Sirius envied of James the most was his loving family. Remus assumed James' happy family life was one of the things that made him so confident and comfortable with himself, unlike Sirius' confidence which was based on his brains and good-looks and mistaken, ingrained pure-blood pride. It felt strange to think of Sirius having such human longings, for love and affection, the dark creature that he was. Though it was actually Remus that was the real dark creature, he often thought Sirius would make a much better werewolf than he did. Sirius would somehow make it seem intriguing and romantic, instead of just awkward and painful and embarrassing.

'So will this help me with Evans then?' James asked bluntly of his best friend.

'Probably not with someone like Evans,' Sirius explained, 'she's just too boring.' Too clever, he means, thought Remus.

'Well there's no point me being here then,' huffed James, then pointing accusingly at his best friend, 'you are talking a load of arse.'

'Well, you could get yourself an interesting girlfriend instead of pining over a boring whinger like her, I'm sure there's plenty of girls that'd go out with you.'

Sirius' intense hatred for Lily often worried Remus. She wasn't that bad, in fact she was lovely.

'I don't know why you're so down on her, I thought she'd be your type; good-looking, not a Slytherin or a pure-blood.' James said, echoing Remus' thoughts.

'Well, she would be, if she wasn't such a goody-goody, stuck up little cow.'

'Just because you only date stupid women and Lily isn't stupid enough to put up with you.' James' tone now held distinct warning notes; Remus could feel the fight brewing.

He knew Sirius disliked Lily because she was good friends with Remus and because she was the object of James' affection, and that meant she was encroaching on Sirius' territory in certain ways, but sometimes he worried that maybe Sirius might just fancy her a little... He didn't even want to think about that happening. It would be disastrous.

Just like Saturday was going to be.

'How about we try out my techniques on some real women in the common room?' Sirius asked them brightly.

'How about I eat my own foot?' Peter replied, also brightly.

'Oh come on--' Sirius pouted.

'Yeah,' Remus replied, 'just after I've finished hanging myself in the bathroom.'

'Well if you lot have to live a long and boring life of celibacy it will not be my fault.' Sirius flung an arm back dramatically, dismissing them all, as he gathered himself up and once again flounced elegantly from the room.

'Ponce,' commented James inaccurately.

#

Remus followed Sirius into the Three Broomsticks with some trepidation; he definitely did not want to be here. He was led over to a table concealed in a far corner where the girls were sitting.

'I'll get the drinks,' Sirius declared happily, leaving Remus alone with two girls that he hardly knew, and only talked to in Astronomy classes when it was absolutely necessary.

'Remus, I wasn't expecting you,' was the first thing Amanda said after the hellos and a lengthy pause. Oh great, Remus thought, she'd been expecting that Sirius would bring James.

'I wasn't expecting me either,' he told her, pleasantly enough, 'I was expecting to be sitting in the common room with a good book and some sort of cake--'

'Not talking about books already are you Remus?' chastised Sirius, quickly reappearing with the butterbeers.

'Not chocolate cake, I'm not in the mood for chocolate, possibly one of those sponge ones, covered in coconut with jam inside...'

They were all staring at him. 'Are you trying to be weird on purpose?' Sirius asked angrily.

'No.' He honestly didn't know where that had come from.

'He isn't usually this bad,' Sirius assured the girls.

'I'm sure he is, you're probably just more used to him,' Amanda told him archly. Her voice said she was joking, but there was still a definite hint of malice.

Sirius frowned, then shrugged it off. 'He's just too clever for his own good. Reads Shakespeare and all that; he's been teaching it to me. Do you two like Shakespeare?'

Remus rolled his eyes because, although Sirius was clever, something always went horrifically wrong when he tried to pretend to be intellectual. It just didn't suit him.

'Who?' Amanda asked coldly. What a bitch, thought Remus. He'd never understood Sirius' taste in women; if you were so stunningly beautiful you could have anyone you wanted why would you bother with someone who was a bitch or stupid? Or both.

'Really, Amanda, even pure-bloods know who Shakespeare is,' Jemima said.

'Yeah, Amanda,' Remus added rather harshly, not wanting to be patronised by his sort-of blind-date who he didn't even like.

'If you don't start behaving better Remus Lupin, I will never help you get a date again,' Sirius claimed.

'You say that like it's a threat.'

'So, you read a lot of Shakespeare?' Jemima asked him hurriedly, probably to diffuse the argument.

#

Remus soon realised how clever it was of Sirius to have brought it up; he managed quite a lengthy conversation with Jemima about various Shakespeare plays, and various other aspects of his life, and even the mystery surrounding the bard's true identity, leaving Sirius to get down to the serious business of trying to seduce Amanda.

Remus found Jemima was a lot more intelligent than he'd ever given her credit for. Possibly he'd always judged her on the fact that she was a Hufflepuff, and the general frivolousness of her friends, but then he himself would hope no-one judged him simply on the qualities of his friends. She was certainly genuinely interested in Shakespeare, and despite the fact that she was dating Sirius she was quite happy to laugh at Remus' jokes at his friend's expense.

Remus couldn't find himself attracted to her though. For one, Sirius was right, she did have a lot of hair on her forearms, it must have been because with her very pale skin and dark hair it showed up more than on other girls. Also if you looked rather too closely you could see she had something of a moustache too, and, worryingly, it was far more advanced than Sirius' pathetic efforts.

And despite not wanting to judge her on the merit -or rather lack of merit--of her friends, he really didn't like Amanda. Vile girl, he thought, as she tossed her hair and stroked Sirius' arm seductively; he almost wanted to warn Jemima what a cow her best friend was.

One thing he did like about Jemima was how wrapped up she could get in a good conversation, so wrapped up she didn't even notice how disgustingly her boyfriend and her best friend were behaving.

'You want to get out of here?'

'What?' Remus was surprised, Sirius' plan could hardly have actually worked.

'Well you don't look happy in here, come on.' She grabbed his arm and dragged him up and out of the pub.

'Er... what about them?'

'I'm sure they'll be fine without us.'

'But--'

'Don't worry about it, she's stolen every boyfriend I've ever had anyway. Well almost every boyfriend.' She smiled mysteriously.

'And you don't mind?' The mistake he'd made, Remus mused, was assuming that girls were silly, when really they almost always knew more than boys did.

'Nah. I don't let her anywhere near Timmy.' They were walking through Hogsmeade now.

'Timmy?'

'My real boyfriend. He's a Muggle. I know Manda wouldn't approve, but I'm sure that wouldn't stop her trying to steal him. It's hard enough holding on to him as it is, not being able to tell him much about my life...'

'But surely you and Sirius--'

'It was only a couple of kisses.'

Remus didn't comment; if she was his girlfriend he wouldn't have seen it that way.

'Besides, Amanda might be quite keen on Sirius, but she prefers older men. She's only doing it to make Fergus Patrick jealous.'

'Really...?'

'Maybe I shouldn't have told you that--'

'Not at all, serves him right. Ha!'

'Charming!'

'You'd feel the same if you'd been dragged on this hideous, sick and twisted nightmare of a double-date by an evil scheming so-called friend-- oh I suppose you have, really.'

'Yes.'

'And you're not annoyed?'

'No, makes life interesting.'

'I don't want an interesting life! I want boring!'

Jemima laughed. 'You know, you aren't half as bad as I thought you were.'

'Nice of you to say so.'

'You know what I mean. Fancy going to Honeydukes? Or do you still want some cake?'

'Cake would be good.'

'How about we get some then you can walk me back to school and you'll get to go and sit in your common room with some Shakespeare.'

'Mmm.'

#

The thunder and lightning had started almost immediately they'd entered the castle. He was feeling very grateful for Jemima's interference right now; she'd even been the one who'd suggested that it was chocolate cake he wanted after all, and if it hadn't been for her, he could have been stuck in this torrential down-pour, instead of dry and warm and toasty in his bed.

He was curled up, under the duvet, clutching his Shakespeare and still slowly devouring his cake, when the thing got in with him. It was wet and cold and moaning.

'Please bugger off.'

'Remussssussssus.'

'I'm quite happy, thank you, and now you're spoiling things.'

'Fergus Patrick came after me!'

'Did he?' Remus didn't even try to sound surprised. Or interested.

'Yes, apparently he wants Amanda and he was not happy.'

'Serves you right.'

'He hit me,' Sirius whined.

Remus turned over to look at him; he was pouting childishly, showing off his split lip. 'Did he hit you because you were with Amanda, or because of something you said?'

'It hurts,' Sirius added, ignoring the question.

'Sorry. Here, I got you some cake.' Remus reached under his bed and produced the spare piece of cake he'd bought specially to smooth over Sirius' inevitable disappointment in not getting his own way with Amanda.

'Aww. I should give up on girls, shouldn't I? They're all so annoying. All I need from now on is a warm friend and some chocolate cake.' He snuggled up and scooped some thick chocolate icing up with his finger and spread it over his tongue. 'Oh, this is good. You are wonderful; why can't you be a girl?'

'Do I have to explain genetics and basic human biology to you?'

'Please don't. Don't spoil it. You have chocolate on your cheek.'

Remus reached a hand up. 'Where?'

'Here.' Sirius licked all the way up the side of his face, presumably smearing it with chocolate off his tongue.

'Ugh!' Remus pushed him away.

'So did you get a good snog out of Jemima after all your Shakespearian ramblings?'

'We were doing no such thing! She already has a boyfriend anyway.'

'What? That bitch was two-timing me?'

'You were two-timing her, with her best friend,' Remus reminded him.

'Yes, but Sirius Black can get away with that sort of thing.'

'Obviously he can't.'

'Yeah, good point.'

'So you'll stop chasing after silly superficial girls like Amanda? I hate her by the way.'

'Me too, now! Getting me beaten up! Spoiling my lovely face! Yes, no longer will I chase after girls with no merit other than groin-swellingly good looks.'

Remus tried not to laugh at his choice of expression.

'Apart from Scarlett Artemis, because I will never stop pursuing her.'

'Sirius--'

'Come on, even you wank over her.'

'Eat your damn cake before I do.'

'Oh you want some of this, do you?'

He gave in and played along. 'Oh yes, Sirius, my handsome darling.' Sirius pushed some cake into Remus' mouth with his fingers. 'Mmm.'

'Are you two shagging again?' James asked from the doorway. Remus hadn't even heard it open.

'Actually, our date went so well we have two naked girls in here too,' Sirius called through the bed-curtains.

'I'll believe that when I see it.'

'Oh, Amanda,' Sirius breathed, in what he must have thought was a seductive voice, pressing his palm over Remus' mouth then proceeding to passionately kiss the back of his own hand.

'Mmmargh!' yelped Remus, trying to disentangle himself from his rain-soaked friend and save the remains of the chocolate cake at the same time.

'Fuck's sake, Black, I know you're sexually frustrated but you could at least leave Remus alone,' Peter sniggered.

'You couldn't get him a towel, could you?' Remus asked them. 'He's leaking all over my bed.'

'Get some self control,' James told Sirius, handing him in a face-towel. 'You didn't say you had cake!'

'Not for long,' Remus assured him and threw the towel over Sirius' head and attempted to rub his hair dry. 'How come you two aren't wet?'

'We missed the storm,' Peter told him, climbing through the curtains on the other side of the bed. 'We got bored of stalking Lily and came back early.'

'Some of us got bored of stalking Lily,' James huffed reproachfully, 'you just aren't committed enough to this relationship,' he added, pointing at Peter, then pushing the same finger into the chocolate icing.

'Hey!' Sirius whined, trying to throw off the towel and slap James' hand away. 'Mine!'

'How committed should Peter be to your sick, unreciprocated, three-way stalking relationship?' Remus asked.

'Who punched you?' Peter asked.

'Fergus Patrick. We'll get him later.'

'Tinted bodily fluids?' James asked casually.

'Oh, yes... at the very least...'

'You do know you have chocolate on your face?' James asked Remus. Remus ducked away instinctively, but when the lick didn't come he just scrubbed irritably at his cheek.

'Here, let me.' Sirius lunged at him, tongue out.

'Argh!'

Remus nearly fell off the bed this time, while James made a grab for the cake. A brawl was imminent. Remus threw the Collected Works of Shakespeare onto the floor to save it from any damage or from anyone being hit over the head with it.

He supposed things could have gone worse. He'd made a new friend, Sirius only had a slight cut on his lip and nothing utterly terrible had happened. All's well that ends well, he decided, as he tried to remove Sirius' cold, wet hands from up his jumper, while his face was casually decorated with chocolate icing and someone sank their teeth into the back of his neck.